LadyMouse
by Joel Lane
Summary: The year is 2083 and Disney has been under the thumb of the UTX megacorporation for ten years. Disasters have plagued the world and a group of unlikely heros lead by the Replicant Gadget Hackwrench might just save the world, though death surround them all
1. Identity Crisis

Lady Mouse

Prologue

The year is 2083A.D. and the ocean has raised 91 feet due to the melting of the permafrost releasing huge amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Corporations came and merged and grew. Populations of construction mega-corporations pulled together to stem the ocean's tide of flooding. Death came in the form of a plague in 2068 and scourged the Earth's primates. Most of the great apes and some of the monkeys and one half of humans died.; it was air-borne and was thought it came from the Lefrene Comet that passed near Earth in 2067 . Newer chipsets let the production of robots take up the enormous burden of saving the world and most people believe that this is a good thing. Most people that believe these things were wrong.

Chapter 1 Identity Crisis

Now:

Her large, luminous blue eyes scanned the storm-wracked skies for Milo's air-car. A flash of lightning revealed the quartet of figures about 60 feet from her. Three of them were vaguely insectoid and bronze in color ,built like man-sized preying mantises . The last was a man-shaped machine with glowing laser-red eyes. That flash revealed that she had run out of time.

The UTX Medical Industries building in Chicago had proven to be a twenty-eight floor dead-end. She had gotten inside without problem, but then had tripped a 'silent' alarm. Well, silent to all except to one with hearing like hers. She had managed to make it back to the roof quickly enough and she had hoped the football field wide , octagonal, roof would afford enough cover to hide in until her ride could show up for her. Looking around in the rain, told Gadget one thing—she was out of time.

The hunters had closed in on her trail. Her heart leapt into her throat as she shook from fear and fatigue. Gadget slid out backward from her hiding place on all fours from under a satellite antenna into the pouring rain. Her long naked tail twitched as the rain hit it, and her radar-dish ears did the same as the rain drowned out her super-sensitive hearing. She was soaked to the skin instantly in the driving downpour, the cool water pouring through her tank top and soaking her 'elasto-jeans'..

The sleek shark-form of the air-car purred over-head and glided to a landing on the elevator bank-winch roof. A figure slid out of the vehicle as the door raised up.

"Gadget? Are you there?" Milo strained to see ANYTHING moving through the night-haze and pouring flood falling from the sky. Being saddled by normal human senses made him blind as a bat in the shadow of the huge glowing red'UTX Medical Sciences' sign on the front of the building.

The hunters skulked into the blood-colored shadows as Milo came out from the air-car. The hunters now slowly closed up around him. The humanoid chaser brought it's sub-machine gun up toward Milo's silhouette and aimed with a laser sight. Gadget saw Milo's back clearly through the rain. He was as oblivious to his impending doom as her hunters were oblivious to her. Her options had evaporated.

The rain pounded like her running foot-steps across the wet gravel roof as she launched into motion in a flash. She hefted the sledge-hammer and spun in the air as a mantis-like captroid sprang out from her right side from behind the huge air-conditioning machinery on the roof. The hammer smashed into the knife-blade like sensors on it's head, shattering them into a million bright fragments of crystal metal. The robot staggered and collapsed. The mouse-girl's blonde hair spread out into a fan as she fought for her footing on the rain-slick rooftop. Her boots lost the fight and she spilled backwards onto the rounded, wet gravel. The chaser just missed her with a burst of capture rounds which whined over her supine form, perforating the satellite antenna behind her with a jack-hammer sound.. The two captroids behind her, cut away to the left and right, quickly flanking her. The humanoid chaser in black ceramic armor leapt with easy cat-like grace up to the top of the A/C unit.

"Surrender or be destroyed. You are rogue and malfunctioning. Surrender now!" The voice ordered in a cold, emotionless tone. She leapt to her feet with a quick surge of might.

Her heart was pounding in her chest like a air-hammer as she back-peddled toward the roof-edge, her eyes raking the robots flanking her. "Golly! You don't give a girl much of a choice, do you,?" She asked in a breathless, high-pitched voice. "I am my own person! I am free! Get stuffed....you...you JERKS!"

The one unit she had hit, clambered back to it's feet in time to catch a burst of 4mm neeedler rounds from Milo's machine pistol right into its Doorway-CPU and it fell sprawling. He leapt off the Elevator-winch roof to the main roof below. He landed with an unceremonious 'thud' on the waterlogged roof-top below, scattering gravel everywhere , skidding to his butt and cursing.

The captroid unit on the left rushed her and lunged to envelope her in it's padded arms. She snap-kicked its left arm, blocking it and she swung the sledge-hammer into the right shoulder of the dark bronze mecha . The joint broke under the strike and the unit fell to the roof-top gravel with a crash. Lightning struck the cell-phone tower on the far end of the roof sending a jolt of electricity into soaked roof and everyone on it. Milo yelled loudly and fell back down jolted and stinging.

The right captroid unit fell over for a moment as it's power source was momentarily overcome and the chaser-figure in the armor was jolted off the A/C unit onto the small blonde figure below. Gadget Hackwrench, a replicant made by UTX international, was knocked to the roof below the huge dark armored chaser. It's sub-machine-gun fell from it's grip and into the lit, rain-soaked street below. It's red laser sight flashed like a strobe light as it spun down the twenty-eight floors to the desolate street.

Gadget lost her sledge-hammer to the rain-slick gravel of the roof edge. She gathered her feet up under him to throw him off. He grabbed her by the throat and drew his "electro-harpoon knife".

She screamed,"No! Don't!" As he stabbed it downward at her face. She caught it in her right forearm instead. She screamed in pain and fear as the harpoon-knife slid between the ceramic bones of her forearm, the point coming out just an inch from the end of her nose. The twin points sparked brightly before her eyes. She kicked reflexively and sent him flying over her head, off the roof.

She faintly heard Milo screaming her name as she entered a moment of freefall.

The chaser kept his grip on the knife and that caused her to slide off the roof as well. Gadget screamed loudly as she just caught herself by the left hand on the building gutter. A huge fall of water from the gutter spilled down onto her face causing her to choke explosively. The pain in her right forearm caused her to almost black-out.

"Surrender or be destroyed", the chaser intoned..

The gutter pulled loose from the building where she held on to it and it started a dangerous droop toward the street far below. She gaped in fear, then glared downward.

"You are a STUPID machine!" She screamed loudly and kicked viciously at it's head. Her gloved left hand pulled at the gutter with all her might. The chaser shifted around below her. It pulled itself up to get a better purchase on her. It grabbed her right leg and drew heavily on the knife handle.

The gutter pulled off the sky-scraper with a loud screech and spilled them toward the glistening pavement twenty-eight floors below. Gadget gulped air and pulled her harpoon pistol from the small of her back, left-handed. Not having an angle of attack on the UTX medical complex, she fired it across the street at the huge, dark, abandoned Amtex South Bank building that stood like a huge 40 story tombstone.

The take-up reel whizzed as the molecular monofilament line was braked to non-movement in the gun. Gadget saw the black, dirty banks of windows glittering in the Chicago city lights as they swung up toward her. She moved against the humanoid chaser with all her strength. She let out a little line so they would hit windows and not the concrete dividers She flexed her knees to absorb the impact and clenched her eyes tightly shut and made sure that the hunter took the impact and not her. .

"Surrender or b...," it was interrupted by the crush of exploding glass. They catapulted through the glass and into the interior of the building. She kicked off with all her might, throwing it across the room and through the dry-wall into the corridor outside. She rolled to her feet and holstered her harpoon gun, severing her next-to-last mono-molecular thread. The chaser mecha got to it's feet as she leapt through the weakened drywall into an adjoining office.

The dark robot crashed though the wall board, chasing after her. Gadget's eyes dilated fully as she flipped down her goggles and she ran full out toward the stairs. She reached the stairs and she pelted up them three at a time. Gadget jumped aside as a wall next to her exploded to pieces of wall-board into the darkened stair-well as the chaser reached out to grab at her. She ducked, grabbing her hair down, and raced up the stairs.

The dark armored form shadowed her fleeting form as she ran full out up the long climb to the roof-top of the Amtex South Bank building. Her lungs were gasping and her heart was palpitating after the twenty floor run-up.

Gadget flung herself through the open fire-door at the top. The rest of the stairs up had collapsed from a fire a decade ago. She ran up the side of a wall as the chaser clambered after her. She picked up a piece of steel 3/4 inch rebar from the floor and turned suddenly. She hefted up the rebar into a two-handed grip while she twirled and swept it's feet out from under it.. It fell with a loud clatter and the chaser pointed a fore-arm at her and fired a harpoon. Gadget moved faster than she could imagine. She batted away the harpoon with her mono-molecular gloved right hand.

She cried out in pain as the harpoon nicked the electro-knife handle. She swung the rebar over-hand with her left hand at it's head. With inhuman speed ,it caught the steel bar and pulled it away from Gadget. When it tried to swing it at her, she closed and slipped inside of it's reach and grabbed one of the chaser's arms and flipped it through a hole in the floor. It fell with a crash onto the floor below.

"Gotcha!" Gadget crowed until another harpoon from the mechanism's LEFT arm shot into the ceiling next to her. "Oh that's not fair", she chirped and ran quickly into the rubble leading up to the roof-top as the android pulled itself up to the floor via it's harpoon cable. Gadget adopted a full scrabble, weaving into the soggy, moldy wall-board and concrete slabs and the twisted forest of bent steel rods and supports . She made it to the roof-top of the ruined floors and pulled out her harpoon pistol. One shot left, she noted sourly to herself. Gadget gauged her shot carefully and took aim at the cell-phone tower on the roof of the UTX medical building, twelve floors below her. She could hear Milo's machine pistol firing on that distant rooftop. Gadget braced herself.

Gadget fired her harpoon-pistol as the chaser automaton broke through the rubble with a crash and clatter just behind her. She held the pistol in both hands and ran to the edge at an angle and leapt into space, thumbing the take-up trigger. The chaser almost grabbed her tail as she flew out from the roof, it's ice cold hands just scraping flesh at it's tip.

Gadget flew as if with wings while the take-up reel whirred, whizzing her toward the top of the tower as she swung low around the medical center's roof at an oblique angle from the ruined roof of the abandoned Amtex South Bank building. She swung down to the roof , almost circling the UTX building due to the twelve floor drop in altitude and skidded to a stop as she heard a high-pitched whoosh from the other roof-top. Gadget watched in open-mouth disbelief as a dark silhouette shot into the sky and arced toward her.

"Jump-jets, too? Ah, golly, it's Mil-Spec! Double not fair!"

Gadget ran to get clear of it's decent, which apparently once in the air, it couldn't control. She ran toward the edge of the roof where Milo and the grounded air-car was. She was crossing the huge red neon "UTX MEDICAL SCIENCE BUILDING" sign when it landed on the metal cat-walk with a bone-breaking 'thud' that bent the metal walk-way behind her. It sprang and tackled her and both of them fell down onto the cat-walk and rolled toward the sign-edge on the front of the building. Gadget grabbed an upright railing with her right hand. She screamed loudly as the edgeless knife was driven deeper through her forearm as the robot brought it's greater mass to bear on her.

The chaser had apparently given up on capture since it was going for the throat and neck. It's hands slowly closed on her neck. Gadget had felt the strength of this machine before and knew she was going to die. It would either crush her throat or break her neck. She braced herself for the inevitable, as she punched and kicked it with all her strength. A dark shadow loomed above her with a 4 mm Needler in his human hand.

"Gadj! Duck!" Came the shout out of the darkness.

"AIM HIGHER!" She squeaked in terror as Milo fired a burst of auto-fire which lit up the dark roof-top, barely missing her.

The chaser's head exploded into a puff of fire and sparks in the pouring rain. The limp body of the chaser fell down the length of the building ,through the awning at the front of the building to the street below to shatter into a pattern of used robot parts. Off in the distance came the wail of police sirens.

"Quick! Gadj, Gimme your hand!" he shouted over the thunder and thrust out his hand at her. Her wet form reflected the red light from the sign as if she were soaked in blood. He put down the pistol and grabbed her left hand with desperate strength. Gadget reached up with her right, the knife jammed deep into her forearm, just above the wrist. When she got pulled back up to the cat-walk by her right hand she screamed around clenched teeth as her feet hit the roof-top. Gadget jerked out the "Electro-knife" and stabbed it into the still working captroid as it surged up the stairs- at them. It jerked as she thumbed the trigger after penetrating it's carapace. It fell off the sign into a heap and kept twitching. Gadget pressed her left gloved hand against the wounds in her right forearm.

"Golly", she gasped and she staggered along with her rescuer,"THAT could have been me back there! Milo. MILO! I'm out of body-power. Less than one percent charge remaining" , she gasped out as she was towed by him. She couldn't stop shuddering as she was pulled back to Dr. Fairweather's air-car. Milo Finch guided her, while in something of a daze himself. She stumbled on fatigued and shaking legs across the roof and climbed the access ladder up to the top of the elevator-winch roof to the air-car and slid into the passenger's side, blood pouring onto her lap from her arm.

"Oh, crap! I forgot my gun. Be right back",he remarked feeling nauseated and guilty for being late to the rendezvous. He pressed the powder-blue jump-suit that he hung over the passenger seat to the wounds. "Erm–keep pressure on it."

He ducked out and clambered back to where he left his pistol. Gadget shook her head in unbelieving amazement as she applied pressure to the gaping holes in her forearm. She yelled after him,"Hurry up ,Milo! The police are on their way!"

He was back in a flash of lightning which made him flinch and climbed soggily into the pilot's chair and strapped in.

"Jeezus! He really pegged you!" He moaned softly as he jerked the idling air-car back into the cottony grey sky. The police air-cruisers arrived seconds after the shark-profiled Boeing air-car vanished into the low flight-ceiling of lightning wracked clouds. The winds jerked them around as they climbed above the storm. She wrapped her right fore-arm with her jump-suit. She clenched her teeth and wept softly from the pain. He fire-walled the throttle to give them some distance from what had just happened.

"Soon as we land somewhere, I'll do first-aid on you. ....Erm, any other pains or injuries ,Gadj?"He asked softly trying to look at her around his now fogging glasses. The water running from his black hair kept running into his eyes. He scanned dials and gauges to insure that they had lost their pursuers.

Her tail twitched spasmodically as she smiled around the pain. She was moved by his caring., "Um ...no injuries. It wasn't a complete waste. Not completely."

She fell silent from the conflicting emotions that buffeted her choked her into silence. After a long moment of silence, broken by sporadic lightning and thunder, she said slowly and quietly, the strain of her emotion making her voice crackle, "Milo–I didn't have time to get a positive identification . Other than one thing. My brain DOES belong to a human-being. Human DNA. The records are sealed. I couldn't break the encryptions in time before the alarm went off."

"Now," he started slowly, "you are a live brain in the body of a replicant cartoon-mouse girl from Rescue Rangers, named Gadget Hackwrench. Jeezus! What happened to you, girl?"

She rocked over her injured right arm and tried not to sniffle. "Golly...I don't know," she whispered in a tortured tone. The tears ran down her face as she whispered, "I don't remember anything other than being Gadget Hackwrench. I remember all my programming. I remember Chip and Dale and the New Rescue Rangers. I DO NOT remember being human. I don't even remember ever wanting to be human" She was crying and feeling embarrassed about it. She was SO tired her mind was whirling so fast, she could barely think of the thoughts speeding through her mind. So much had happened and so many people had died. She looked out the window at the city lights of Chicago through the scattering clouds as they headed south back to the island of Orlando and the Disney complex adjacent to it.

She wanted all the answers, not the mysteries connected with it. Now she had some answers, but those answers spawned a million more questions. She fought for consciousness. She tried to stay awake on the flight back, but a combination of blood-loss, low body-power, emotional shock and fatigue took their toll on her small body and she lost consciousness looking out the window.

Then:

Milo looked out the window, then had stepped out of the air-bus onto the tarmac of the Transportation and Ticket Center of the Magic Kingdom. The day was hot and the high-tide past the sea-wall was restless in its movement. He shouldered his bag and headed for the "Employees Only" sign. He was thrilled to ride on an actual "air-bus" people-mover from Orlando International Airport . It's fans lifted it's massive bulk back into the air as it moved toward Epcot Center's auto park to pick up out-bound passengers by the monorail terminal.. Air-cars and vectored thrust aerodynes were just the thing for ferrying people into tight places. The ultra rich had air-cars, but ambulances ,fire and police had right-of-way over all others. The perk of riding on a people-mover was a real, though all to short, thrill.

He heard it was a rule that Walt Disney World should only be approached during high-tide while the muddy tidal-flat outside Orlando, Florida was hidden below the globally warmed ocean pounding on the new sea-wall. The seas had raised ninety feet and had drowned many of the world's cities and had brought the sea to Disney World's doorstep. True, the sea at high tide was only a few feet deep on the east side of Disney World , but it caused a panic enough for MMI (another subsidiary of UTX International ) to build a huge sea-wall around the combined parks and set up locks to the various lagoons and water-parks on the inside of the complex.

He came up to another doorstep that read," Welcome to UTX's Walt Disney World. Please have your ID worn openly at all times in the park."

The guard was a UTX model 210 humanoid android. It had the people-skills of a coffee-pot and was featureless silver and black looking very much like a male department store mannequin . It was very high-tech looking and stood there like a toy-soldier of inhuman strength and humorless mien. He came up to it and presented his employee ID card.

A pretty black woman dressed in a blue coverall with a Disney/UTX logo and name tag marked 'Becky' and a "Roxanne" replicant from one of the "Goofy" series sets of characters, dressed in a sun-dress and her short red hair waving provocatively , walked up the side-walk to him. They listened in amusement as he was launching into the third recitation of his identity.

"My name is Milo Jason Finch! I AM expected here! I am a new employee. Call somebody! A human!" He was a mid-twenties pale-skinned young man with large brown eyes and a narrow nose. He had a high forehead and looked around irritated , his brows furrowed. "Hey, you!" He called to the black woman. "Help me pass this dunce, here."

"To much time around A.I.s ?" She frowned and smirked, "You aren't very polite. You should REALLY work on your people skills, you know?"

He looked shocked and muttered while turning red,"Sorry. I'm frustrated." He looked back up at her and said in a low voice,"Can you help?"

The UTX model 210 intoned in a flat computer voice,"You must wait here. Do not advance without authorization. I have no record of you as an employee. Please wait here. A supervisor has been called."

The Roxanne replicant walked forward and looked at the android. "Authorization A-E-13522128."

"A-E confirmed," it said and moved aside.

"Auto-Entry, feh. Bone-head!" She snapped at the Android as she put out a hand at him. "Let me take your bag", the replicant girl said. He was shocked and in a startled trance handed over his bag. She strode off, calling over her shoulder at him, "Hi! I'm Roxanne-5. I'm your guide to UTX's Disney World. Follow me to the employee lodgings." He never seen a non-human replicant before in the real world and was bothered by how...HUMAN-like she moved. How her hips moved and her breasts bounced. How she simulated anger at the dumb android.

"My name is Becky Ramierez," said the pretty black girl. She looked like she was about to bust out laughing. "You DO get used to being around them. I swear." She shook his hand and slapped him on the upper arm. "According to your test scores, you are assigned to my team once you get your bearings. The 'Human' Resources agent will conduct you through orientation once you get dressed for work. The next two weeks will be tough. Good luck!"

"Erm, oh, ah...Oh-kay!" He muttered as he tried to watch where Roxanne-5 had walked off to with his bag. He chased off to catch up with her as a door opened in a wall further down the entry-way. A number of people spilled out and gawked at him.

"NOOBIE!" One called out in a friendly tone."Hey! I'm Jerry Reynolds, Senior tech and ladies man and SOOPER-genius!" He pumped Milo's hand enthusiastically and nodded his tousled brown hair in a friendly and intimate way while grinning.

"Super-idiot jerk-off, more like it,"snapped out Becky with a smirk.

"Ignore the 'queen of mean', mister dude! Catch you later, M'man! I have a Beauty to save from a Beast! IF you know what I mean?" He winked at Milo in the most exaggerated way imaginable and blew a kiss at Becky who sneered at him as she went past him into the break-room.

"Hey, he's cute", called one of the girls looking at Milo.

He was swept up in the moment as effusive greetings rang out, surrounding him. He never had shook so many hands or received so many back-slaps in such a short period of time in his life. They were gone as quickly as they had come. He saw Roxanne-5 tapping her foot at the end of the hallway as he untwisted himself.

"Sorry!" He called out to her. She huffed and entered the elevator with a sway of her hips.

"Employee Quarters," she announced quietly.

The elevator sank below sea-level into the masonry upon which the Magic Kingdom sat. Milo fidgeted and tried not to stare at the replicant. She heaved her chest at him when she sighed.

"You...appear to have a question," she said, looking him up and down.

"NO!" He gasped,"Well, yes. I guess I do." He blushed. "Damn. WHY are you so sexy?"

"You find me sexy?" She asked with an insouciant air.

He took a deep breath and tried to calm his pulse,"Erm....ah......well a bit. Are ALL you replicant characters all 3-p-r'ed ?"

"No. Only less than 20% of the replicants in UTX's Disney World are quote 3-P-R s unquote," she said in a flat voice. Her eyes seemed to twinkle in amusement. That bothered him more than her 'sexier-than-Venus' act. He knew that the Disney 3P-R Character Replicants were the most advanced hardware AND software for androids on the planet but he never in his wildest dreams expected to meet one THIS advanced so soon.

The elevator door opened to reveal a heavy-set middle aged man with a short salt-and-pepper beard and horn-rimmed glasses. He held a palm-HDTV viewer and looked up from it and nodded toward one of the seemingly omnipresent cameras. " 'Particular Peculiar Programmed Responses-- The basis for an emotional response from otherwise unemotional machinery. A perfect mimicry of some real-seeming turns of emotion to facilitate a working communication between machines and human-beings' ", he recited from memory in a deep voice. He stepped back to allow Roxanne-5 and Milo to exit. The heavy, bear of a man thrust out a hand toward Milo and chuckled, "Welcome to UTX, Mister Finch."

"Oh my GOD! You are Jules Fairweather! The nobel prize winner in robotics in 2068 just before ...the ..uh plague.", Milo trailed off in embarrassment.

Dr. Fairweather smiled sadly and patted Milo's back as they walked down the hallway. "Yes, Mr. Finch. My wife and son died in it."

Milo said quietly,"My Father and Mother died in it. I lived with my Aunt." Milo stopped dead in his tracks."Sorry. It was fifteen years ago and we still end up talking about it. " Milo looked thoughtful and asked,"'Welcome to UTX'?"

"Mr Matamoras lets me play with toys here. He would turn the whole world into a whore-house if someone didn't stand in his way, at least a little bit. More money than god and the morals of an alley-cat. ", Jules spat out bitterly. "Things changed when Maximillian Matamoras bought the place up. He's driven mad by his successes. He saved the world and lost his soul. He created the Doorway quantum chip and even the Doorway Operating System, but that still isn't enough....",Jules trailed off, dropping his gesticulating hands by his sides, the rising tones of his anger fading off down the hallway.

"Im sorry ,my boy. I'm an old man filled with to many bad experience and bitterness by the movers and shakers of the world. Don't mind me. I just wanted to meet you. You are a real find for this place.", he said with a smile coming to his face.

"We have made all manner of innovation in the software and wetware functions of the replicants....as you have already noticed. We DO have our own set of problems though. Well.... Welcome to Disney World. Things are different now. We need your help."

Now:

"Help me",Gadget gasped out in a whisper. Her arm hurt. Her whole body was sore from exertion. Her large blue eyes snapped open to stare at the IV drip of replacement blood over her right side. Her large ears flicked around to the sound sources in the room as her tail trembled against her legs. Gadget checked on her internal reserves . She was out of body power. Her bio-power was barely stable. She felt cold and very weak. A Latino nurse came into view and looked down on her with a mixture of expressions sympathy and curiosity.

"Where's Milo?" Gadget asked quietly, her head pounding and the room swimming around her. She noticed that her right arm was bandaged and she had a weird cold feeling from it.

"The man who brought you in? He's outside. We just got you transferred to a private room, Miss ...Gadget?" She bit off that last with a look of curious hesitancy.

"Where am I at? I....", she choked off her questions realizing that she was in danger from her words. "I'm confused."

"You are in the Macon, Georgia, Emergency clinic. What do you remember? Do you wish to make a statement to the police? It looks like you were stabbed in the arm. It's a pretty fierce puncture wound."

Gadget quailed at the mention of police. She certainly did NOT want to talk to the police. She instead licked her dry lips and whispered, "Where is the man who brought me in? I really need to talk to him. I'm really foggy. OK?"

The nurse paused and said, "He's right outside. I'll send him in. I'll get some forms for you to fill out. We don't get many total body replacements here." The nurse bit of her questions. She softly asked the wounded girl in the hospital bed, "Why a cartoon mouse girl?"

Gadget sat quietly for a moment and said with a shake of her head and a wry smile, "It gives me a prehensile tail, but I don't look like a monkey." The nurse blinked in surprise and turned to hide her bemused smile, shook her head and left.

Several moments later, Milo came in as Gadget's eyelids fluttered while she fought off her own fatigue. She slapped her cheeks with her left hand to keep herself awake.

"MILO", she began urgently and lost her train of thought. He came around to her left side and squeezed her hand.

"You aren't a machine, Y'know?" He said it ironically pleasantly with an undercurrent of concern.

"Oh yes? Golly, I suppose not. Live brain and all. Mostly machine. Cyborg bodily replacement. No power for that, too. Gosh.....what....did..you tell them.....here I mean?" She fumbled out the words tiredly as if she was crushed down by an enormous weight . She weakly gripped his hand and tried hard not to faint from fatigue

He frowned, seeing how weak she was. In hushed ,urgent tones he whispered,"Gadget, We have to GO. Can you walk?"

She shook her large head and whispered back weakly,"No. Body power is depleted. Need a recharge. Bio-power is marginal but...very, very low. If I over-exert, I risk a catastrophic system-wide crash that will be fatal. I'll die. Leave me and run for it. Save your...self."

He looked shocked and tightened his grip on her hand. " NO. It IS my fight because you are my friend and...well... it is the right thing to do." He looked around the room. "Look. They got you topped off with blood. You are exhausted! Jeez, anybody would be. But!" He broke off, and let go of her hand. He reached for her IV and whispered tersely ,"We HAVE to GO! Jeez...they notified your next of kin. They I-D'ed you from your DNA fingerprint." He turned off the IV drip as the import of his words jolted her back to full consciousness.

"I have NEXT OF KIN? Who is it? WHO am I?" She awoke at that. The feel of her vice-like grip on his arm made him wince in pain as her voice raised up in volume and frequency.

"Keep your voice down! Dammit!" He pulled out the IV needle as she gasped in pain.

"OW", she glared weakly at him as she sank weakly back into the bed. "Who?" She whispered raggedly , grabbing him by the shirt, her strength waning away. He bandaged the IV stick area. She frowned at him and whispered tersely,"How did they unseal the records? Who am I?"

"I don't know," he bit out through clenched teeth as he hefted her up in his arms. He was thankful that she a long gown on. She was four foot ten inches tall, but weighed almost one hundred thirty pounds of solid muscle. He was out of shape and exhausted and knew it.

Her blonde hair swept down against his chest as her oversized head lolled under his chin. She was completely limp as a rag-doll. She complained without strength,"Golly, I'm so tired. Gosh."

He opened the door a crack softly and waited nervously until the nurse went by. He strode into the hall and went toward the door out. At the corner, Gadget tapped his face with her left hand and waved him back. He panicked and ducked into a room where a young woman sat surprised, holding her burned hand before a chilling unit on a table next to a sink.

She pulled up and asked tersely," Who the hell are you?" She stared at Gadget in wonder and concern. "What...who?" The woman tried hard not to stare. She stared anyway at the scruffy-looking, tired, bruised mouse-girl in sternly terrified arms of this battered looking young man

Gadget gave the young woman her most luminous smile and said softly,"We must have gotten the wrong room. I fell from a ladder and tore my arm open. I'm sorry." Her large ears twitched as she scanned the hall for the identifiable noise of nurse-footsteps. She looked up at Milo and whispered, "Now. Way clear."

Milo opened the door and looked outside into the hallway . To the girl he said quickly, "Erm, sorry again and stuff. Bye." He slid out into the hall, carrying Gadget in his arms.

Moments later, the young woman looked thunderstruck as the nurse came in to check on her. "You'll never believe THIS...", the woman began.

A moment later, the harried angry nurse barreled around the corner and shouted at Milo's back,"HEY, YOU! STOP!" Milo ran flat out and hit the outside door with his shoulder. It flipped open and he ran out into the parking lot. He spotted the air-car and he ran pell-mell toward it .

"OPEN!" His shouted command was heard and the door mechanism responded by opening the doors on the sleek air-car. Milo caught out of the corner of his eyes that security was closing in on him.

"Stop! POLICE!" The shouts came up from behind him while he ran full speed.

He jumped in and shouted, "CLOSE AND LOCK!" The security guards and Police pounded on the doors while he instructed the machine to take off. The turbines whined to life as a brown-haired woman with delicate features ran up to the passenger-side door and looked in.

She and Gadget locked eyes in shock, as the vehicle started to take off. Gadget reflexively reached out for the woman as she fell away from sight into the darkness of the night. Milo gasped like a beached whale and Gadget couldn't tell whether he was wet from sweating in strain or the weather earlier. He set Dr Fairweather's stealth cloak to hide them from sensors and Gadget pulled the thin hospital robe tighter to her and hugged herself shivering.

On the ground, the woman with the brown hair and delicate features went inside to inquire about what just happened. They wouldn't talk to her til she remarked," My name is Miriam Hackensack. YOU people notified ME that my daughter was here with a injured arm and appeared confused without her identifiable face. Was that mouse–looking thing girl... my dead daughter? I was told by UTX Industries that she died in the Yucatan while working for them FIVE years ago. What is the meaning of this?"

Then:

He muttered in irritation, "What is the meaning of this? Miriam?"

Nathan was a kindly man with a high forehead and fastidious manner. He was bronze and beautiful and unfortunately knew that about himself. Miriam detested vain people. Now she was with one. She sighed heavily, again.

He continued,"Honey, I just don't see the attraction for these children's rides. Let's go hang-gliding if you want a real thrill." He chuckled and pulled her close to keep her from being swept away by the swirling Disney-World crowds. She frowned and walked on til she saw something that transfixed her.

The sign touted ,"Gadget's Wild Flight! Take wing with one of Disney's Favorite Characters as she takes you on an aerial tour of Disney World and the UTX Entertainment Park Area!"

Nathan snorted," 'Favorite Character' HA! Never heard of him. They need some new ones, two hundred year old mice are passe' ,you know.

"Gadget is a SHE, and only ONE hundred years old. Let's see...there was the original series one hundred years ago , the 'New Rescue Rangers' back in the 2020's and then that awful C-G series by herself, 'Lady Mouse' back in the late 2060's. She was one of my daughter's three favorite characters from Disney. She, Ariel–the little mermaid to you, and Alif the elf -maid",Miriam announced testily as she moved up to the gate.

Nathan looked aghast as he fell into line behind her. "Is this what this trip is about? Bringing up memories about your daughter? Miriam! For god's sake–let her go. This isn't healthy", he said quietly, as to not cause a scene.

"You said it wasn't healthy for me to have a second childhood either! You don't have to come along on the ride if you don't want to! Nathan, you are really ....",she chose her next words carefully since she felt like a volcano about to blow,"...annoying me. Stop it. This is about you and me....about what the future might hold for us. ALL we have done here is fight. I'm sick of it.", she would have said more, but was interrupted by a talking mouse replicant at the ticket gate.

"Hiya! I'm Sparky! You two together to ride the Ranger-wing into the wild, blue yonder?" He looked eager. They had gotten the full spiel since it was the off season and there were no lines to cut the spiel down for speediness sake's . Miriam was amazed at how life-like he looked and acted. He was tall and thin with a wild shock of brown hair. He ran a hand through his hair and smiled at them hoping.

She cut a hard glance at Nathan and snipped out,"We are together?"

He 'harumphed" and dug out his card for swiping. "Yes. I would suppose ."

She chuckled and remarked with impish glee, "You are so old fashion!" She waved her arm at the credit receiver. It read her money imprint off a chip in her bracelet. She went through the turnstile and waited for him.

They boarded the "Ranger-Wing", a tilt-rotor aircraft, very much like a V-22 Osprey, favored by the U.S. military half a century earlier. It had been modified heavily. She noticed that a panel was off near the front of the inside cabin and the pilot was tinkering in it. Nathan said in alarm, "Flight cancelled! Down for repairs! Lets go hang-gliding now.?"

Gadget Hackwrench, mouse aviator, and tinkerer straightened up and looked startled at the five people boarding the 'Wing". "Golly! I'm late. I mean you're early! I mean...No problems! Just resetting the thermostat in the air conditioner, is all. No engine work, this close to a flight.!"

She stepped forward and thrust out a freshly wiped off hand to Nathan and said," Hello, I'm Gadget."

He looked as if she would bite him and give him rabies and he said sourly,"These things give me the creeps! " He sat down and glowered at the dirty hand.

"Nathan! It's all just part of the act, you dufus! " Miriam said in a rising tone of irritation. She smiled down at Gadget's face. "Hi, I'm Miriam, that sourpuss is Nathan, my boyfriend." Gadget looked ...strange. Her huge blue eyes glistened with a sudden turn of emotion.

Almost a look of recognition. "Golly, I've seen you in the park before? Right?" Gadget's tone was almost pleading. Miriam was put off by the intense probing gaze from the mouse-girl. She didn't expect such intelligence behind those eyes or the warm strength in her grip.

"You must have. I know I NEVER met anyone like you before", Miriam said intently with a smile.

Gadget seemed crestfallen and then greeted the other passengers, happily enough. The other three passengers were typical tourists except for one young man in a black tee shirt with a rock group logo on it and a smell of alcohol about him.

When she went to greet him, he tried to kiss her. She pushed him away gently and said,"I'm sorry. I don't know you. Stop it."

He grabbed her butt with one hand and a breast with another and muttered to her, "C'mon , baby. Just lock your ankles around my neck and let's get the plan MOVIN'!" He thrust his hips at her provocatively. For a reasons she couldn't name, Miriam stood up and clenched her fists.

"You take your hands off of her, this instant!" Miriam shouted with anger. She was shaking with rage as she watched the young man start in surprise.

He grinned at Miriam and said,"Ice-age it! Chill extreme! It IS just a bot with HUGE ta-tas–", his grope was interrupted by Gadget stiff-arming him into and OVER the front seats.

"WHOA!" He shouted in surprise and sat stunned, starring at Gadget as she stood there in a defensive martial arts stance.

She was beet-red and said in a growl," I SAID 'stop'! You don't listen well, do you?" She straightened up and took a deep breath and looked at Miriam in shame. "I'm sorry. Sorry..."she turned to everyone else and gave a chagrined smile of embarrassment and continued ," that you all had to see that." She looked at the young man. "I'm going to call security now. You should go with Sparky there." She indicated the mouse-man that just came in, hearing raised angry voices from inside.

"I...need to finish my pre-flight walk-around and wash up and we'll be ready to go." She walked to the back of the plane where she was silhouetted against the bright sunlight outside and looked back at Miriam and nodded to her. Miriam couldn't see the mouse-girl's face, but imagined that Gadget smiled at her.

Miriam sat down and Nathan said,"What did you think you would accomplish..."

"Nathan–shut up. I don't want to hear it," she said with finality . The finality of their relationship, Miriam was sure.

Several moments later , a different Gadget came in. Miriam was sure that this one was a completely different one. The look in this one's eyes was the look of a people-smart machine, NOT the look of a smart person. Miriam was confused and bothered by the whole incident. She just didn't have the words to say why.

"That is all I can remember", Miriam told the security officer and the technician who awaited them when they set back down at the lift-port. "She isn't in any trouble is she? She was SO ....uhm....real, I guess. That is what got me so mad. That boy pawing at her like a doll. Maybe she is....but....I don't know. She...IT was just like a real person," Miriam finished lamely.

"Thanks, Ma'am. We don't have any further questions...", Ricky Patel, the security man, looked over at Milo Finch , who looked confused and out of his element, "for you. Thank you for your co-operation . Please accept the Disney offer to pick up your dinner tab anywhere in the UTX/Disney entertainment complex tonight as apology for this incident."

She nodded and left to join Nathan.

Milo went over to the HVAC panel and took it off. He whistled and looked over at Ricky. Ricky Patel was dark skinned with jet black eyes and smooth skin, about the same age as Milo. Ricky came over and asked wryly ,"It isn't a bomb is it? I get off in an hour and REALLY don't want to be blown up."

Milo said with a smirk,"No. It is something that blows...just not UP!" Milo p robed the thermostat and some of the other parts. "It's really top-notch work. My wrist-top just looked through this vehicle's work and service logs. This section doesn't look like this section."

Ricky said in surprise,"What? In English, please!" He looked into the panel at the precise lines of machine cut parts and precision welds. He looked at the diagrams Milo showed him and at the panel he was already looking at.. "What in HELL? It's completely different."

'Not yet required for service scheduled maintenance' the panel diagram showed in yellow on Milo's projection screen.

Milo looked at him and remarked slowly, his neck-hair prickled," We haven't had it LONG enough to have this section worked on outside the factory!"

Ricky coughed nervously and scuffed his feet. "Well beats me. The bots can't work on the parts. They aren't programmed to. That looks like factory work. They probably screwed up the records and are showing a civilian model and these are military issue parts or something viced on the freaking versa." He shook his head. "Compared with one of the bots attacking a guest for groping her, this is small potatoes."

Milo frowned and said sternly, "The situation is not an attack. The perpetrator was NOT injured and the unit in question acted perfectly within park guidelines for human staff."

"HUMAN staff, Milo! Human! Not replicant behavior codes. She acted like a human, not as a park automaton. They ain't human, buddy boy. Pocahontas is not a real girl any more than Pinochio is! Handle it," Ricky huffed throwing up his hands. "I am convinced. This is a TECHNICAL matter, not security. Pull her and do some circuit-testing or such to keep her from punching or shooting a guest that brushes up against her. Gadgets One, Two and Four were in the vicinity. Five is the one who took over the flight from whichever of those three...AND I expect a threat assessment on this malfunctioning replicant by the end of the week. Look, Milo...I," the high-pitched beep of his cell-phone went off, cutting off his further comment . "Gotta go!" Ricky ran off talking about a shop-lifter near the lift-port and in pursuit.

Milo ran his hands over the welds in the HVAC panel and inspected the blower cover. "This is HAND-done. Not a computer-weld." He had to meet with Dr. Fairweather about this.

"They are learning AI's", Dr Fairweather said simply with an unplaceable hard tone in his voice . "They do pick up things during their day's interaction. The Doorway-CPU's are matrix memory chips with as many connections as the human brain. The Doorway Operating System is adaptive. These things are strange and must be investigated. Obviously? "

"Of course, Dr Fairweather", Milo exclaimed in confusion.

Dr. Fairweather steepled his fingers and sighed," Look, Milo–it's time for you to take some initiative. You have done some brilliant work these past months ,but you need to seize the day. You have stumbled into 'terra incognita' in truth. You not only need to find the rogue unit....you need to discover why she acted the way she did."

Jules Fairweather leaned back in his padded leather chair and looked sourly at Milo. "NONE of the Gadget units are admitting fault or involvement in this incident. That means that one is lying. I want you to do a 3-P-R test on all five units and try to find out which is faulty."

Milo turned red and he stuttered out,"You mean you w-want me t-to do... I mean to have sex with...?" Jules looked surprised and outraged and slapped his hand down onto the desk.

"NO! Good lord! No, boy. That is a horny first year student response! I did expect better from you. Do something provocative and see if you get punched," Jules remarked with an exaggerated waggle of his eyebrows and amused smile. He couldn't help but laugh at his younger colleague's consternation. The way Milo fidgeted made Dr. Fairweather laugh.

"Take Jerry, Becky and that new girl...," Jules fumbled with his palm-viewer for a moment,"Chase Victor, ah–that's the name; new girl ,Chase , and form up a team to investigate this anomaly. I don't want to pull all five units unless absolutely necessary. If that is what it takes—do that then. Be decisive– take charge! Come to me with findings–not speculations. You don't have much time. Now scoot ,boy! I have a meeting to go to. Miss Victor should be at the lift-port in fifteen minutes. Be a good lad and toss her off into the deep water." Jules smiled paternally and waved a hand at Milo dismissing him

"Oh...the deep water I'm sinking in right now. SURE! The more the merrier. I might need some help and direction. This is a weird situation", Milo said disheartened.

Jules Fairweather cleared his throat and smiled with a sadness that he didn't explain , "My boy, I'll try to keep you on the right track."

Now:

"GET OFF THE TRACK!" The scream came from all around her. She looked around in fear and horror. She was in a hall of mirrors and was a Gadget-doll. She was naked and lacked genitals and nipples. Her arms and legs had visible joints and she felt like cold plastic. She had no body temperature. She stood on a monorail track and could here the 'whoosh' of the advancing mono-rail.

She knew what was going to happen

She fought her way out of the night-terror with an act of pure will and awoke with a cry of fear and despair. She flailed her arms for a second and looked around in shock.

Grey light poured in on her from the windshield. She was stiff and sore and her mouth felt and tasted like cotton. She stretched and fell back into the seat. Her overly large blue eyes scanned for Milo. She spotted him topping a rise about a hundred yards beyond which was a familiar pair of golden arches.

They were in Macon, Georgia in an unfinished subdivision that Gadget had picked off the map at random, parked in a lot inhabited by rabbits and tall weeds. Gadget felt pulled to pick this spot. She wasn't sure why.

"Mmm, McClowns. Golly, Milo....I want an omelette," she said to herself, feeling moody. "I want my CLOTHES!" She sighed, pulling at her hospital gown in anger. She sat up when another feeling came over her. She leaned forward and scanned the outside of the vehicle in discomfort. "Gosh, I better go."

Milo got as many different things off the breakfast menu he thought she might like. He still didn't know that much about her. The programmed reflexes and responses must be loaded into a sub-processor in her brain somewhere, he considered. He had read about such things in speculative tech articles and some of the cross-over medical articles in the Journal of the American Medical Association .

He had NEVER heard of a total personality transplant. The human brain is NOT a computer and doesn't work like one. It stores information on RNA as well as neural pathways. The technology for such a transference is beyond any practical technology known.

The UTX made Doorway chips were electro-colloidal stochastic parallel processors and that description could describe the operation of the human brain, too. He had read some theoretical pieces by someone about just such a thing, though he couldn't remember who right off. He frowned and hefted the food-bags and started back to the Boeing air-car. He was still lost in thought when he got back the vehicle. He choked on his waffle-stix as he noted that the passenger-side door was open was open and Gadget was long gone.

He ran up in confusion and fear. He put the food down in the seat and looked around, his heart pounding in worry. He looked for tracks in the muddy ground around the air-car and found a small three-toed foot-print. He followed the tracks quickly. He imagined all manner of dreadful things.

She might be delirious or dazed or hallucinating or even worse....she might be running some default program that turned her into a killer cyborg bent on murder and mayhem. He skidded to a stop, spotting her sitting under a tree with her hospital gown up.....

"DO YOU MIND?!?!" Her screech cut through the still morning air like a chainsaw sending all the nesting birds in earshot winging into the sky with loud squawks and cries. Mortified, he turned and ran quickly back to the air-car. He stood there until she wove unsteadily back to the Boeing.

Her face was red and she glared at him and asked in a low angry tone,"What in heck do you call that? Golly ...that was FOOLISH and EMBARRASSING for both of us. On the rainy roof you make enough noise to call down a horde of hunters that I have to get stabbed to save YOU from and then when it matters for privacy's sake for you to call me by name—NOW you play at 'super-ninja'?"

She ran out of wind and sagged against the stream-lined outside of the craft and ran both hands through her hair. "I stink and am filthy from ruin-crawling and wearing a hospital gown and you look like twenty miles of bad road like some homeless guy and we might not get off the ground again because of no power and I look like a mouse, and Ow, my arm hurts," She smiled sadly and started giggling.

"I'm sorry" Milo said solemnly. "I'm not very good at this stuff. I was worried about you and thought you might have wandered off ,out of your head or..," he choked himself off about two seconds to late. He colored a bright pink and took his glasses off and rubbed his face.

She turned and stared at him with a startled look frozen on her child-like face. She started to gasp out a chortle and stuttered out,"M-milo...I AM out of MY head and in a...rent-a-skull. Bought it in MOUSE-TOWN!" She chuckled and rocked back against the sleek fender, putting her hands over her mouth and trying not to cry as well..

"Sorry again," he said and smiled. He laughed and said in a chortle,"I am only human, you know. YOU are the cyborg terminator! Well, four and half foot tall, mouse-girl terminator."

She finished her laughter and stretched. Her joints cracked as she bent backward and grasped her ankles. Milo gaped at her inhuman dexterity and at the surprise flash of skin. Her stomach rumbled. She straightened up in a flash after flashing him, and turned red She looked at him and said softly,"Gosh...I'm sorry, Milo. I was upset and I said things I didn't mean. I was....," she blushed to her ears and finished," embarrassed. And stressed. AND still tired, too... in fact–I think I am still half-way asleep. At least now I know why I was always so draggy in the morning. Humans need their caffeine and coffee, right? Replicants are just 'popping fresh' "

She moved over to the open door and picked up the McDonald's sack and started to probe around in the bag .She smiled at him and asked chirpily ," What's for breakfast?"

They ate quickly and silently. They had injured their bond and were both careful of further damage to an already fragile feeling. Milo felt like he was missing something about Gadget's construction parameters . She was SUPERHUMAN in strength and speed and he NEVER saw anyone move like her in that fight. He had only a short look at the brain in the head next to him. He had no way to cushion the blow.

He finished his breakfast and sat studying his finger-nails until Gadget said,"Mmmm?"

He said without preamble," You should be dead.."

Her ears folded down and she hissed out,"Excuse ME!?"

He flinched at her cutting tone. He looked at her and said with a tremble in his voice,"You didn't...erm...see your brain. I mean your OWN brain. I did. I recognized the signs in the Corpus Callosum and in the cerebrum of linear silica-organic build up similar to the 'Silicon Plague' of 2068 that killed half the human-beings in the world over a five year period. There hasn't been another incident of the plague in the past decade.

" It killed my mom and dad. My dad went homicidal and then had a heart-failure and died My mom went crazy ,then lost her sight, hearing, feeling --then died of respiratory arrest. The space-born parasite from that Lefrene comet in mid-2067 was responsible . You heard of it. "Wormwood" is the name Matamoras called it and the whole world caught it and ran with it.

"Biblical prophesy didn't cover the madness and death of the 'Silicon Plague'.Most who got it died. Some of the survivors were crippled, mad or blind from the scarring on their brains. Most who survived had silicon implanted in their brains that acted like...implants. Cybernetic implants. He said....I mean good old Max Matamoras said he was inspired by what he saw to come up with the Doorway-CPU and O.S. The more silicon that was implanted, the healthier they USUALLY turned out.

"Maybe the comet had something to do with it. Maybe it was a space-ship and the little aliens told him how to make people into cyborgs without the rejection factor killing them in the long-term."

Milo socked the console, hurting his hand and making Gadget jump.

He shook his hand and swore.

Gadget said nothing, just put a sympathetic hand on his forearm and gazed at him with a soft look .

"What we don't know will kill us,"he said grimly.

Gadget squeezed his arm.

Then:

Chase squeezed his hand and said with relief," Thank you for saving me from that mechanical moron." Chase Victor said and jerked her thumb at the UTX model 210 at the 'Employee's Only' entrance. Milo fought off the effect of the deja vu and of Chase's awesome beauty and straightened up and adjusted his jump-suit. She was a blonde, blue-eyed girl-next-door beauty from Texas and had scored very high in Cyber-psychology and Human Interface problems.

"Erm...uh...Yes. My name is Milo Finch and I'm a supervisor. Sort of ...anyway...we need your help to sort out a problem that just occurred.. I'll brief you when we get together with the rest of the investigation group", he finished lamely feeling like an ignoramus .

"Investigation? WOW! "Her face lit up hearing that,"Were deaths involved? What happened?" Her questions were excited and insistent. He flinched inside from her eager blood-thirstiness.

He took her bag and regretted it immediately . "You must be strong. Your bag weighs a ton! What do you have packed in there?" He looked about. No handy androids about when you need one, he observed to himself.

"Bricks . My dad was into masonry and I practice an old family hobby. I build fireplaces in my spare time",she answered with warm wit and a joking tone. "Some real books and my own PC. And some other stuff, too. All by the book. No infarctions ."

"Infractions?" He asked feeling the strain of her bag.

"No. Infarction. As in heart-attacks. Looking in my stuff won't give people heart-attacks if they work here", she remarked with a smile.

He frowned and looked serious. " I'm more concerned with you having a heart-attack once you get settled in. ....Or ME", he huffed as they got on the elevator. "Scooter level", he announced to the elevator system.

She gave him a hard and curious look. "Meaning?"

He was a bit slow in answering as they got off the elevator and mounted up onto a four-wheel scooter. Milo stowed her bag and they drove off into the subterranean labyrinth under Disney world. She looked at him and prodded him with,"Well? Meaning what? Tell me."

"This place is NOT like school at all. This is like the real world except through a fun-house mirror. Weird. You can debate Micky Mouse about the merits of Ghandi's pacifism here. Some of the replicant girls have female viewpoints and problems with men. Hang normallacy at the door and welcome to Disney World as run by UTX.", He said as he conducted her through the tech imagineer's labs to his workshops. He parked the scooter at a depot with six other scooters and went into a number of large workshops. He waved at Becky, who had a Goofy unit open and was busily replacing a number of ribs.

"Garsh, that really smarted ,too. I'll know not to lean on THAT rail again. Golly, that would have been awful for a guest to take a spill like mine! One of you regular human type peoples would have crippled up ..or worse!" Goofy carried on amiably until Milo got Becky's attention.

Becky and Goofy said, "Hey! Whassup ,Milo?"

Becky shook her head and Goofy laughed,"Oops, sorry Beckers!"

Becky smirked at Goofy,"Jinx!"

Milo rolled his eyes and said,"Beckers after you finish up with the Goof-miester, I need you in meeting room 101 A.S.A.P.. Where is Jerry? I ask afraid for the answer."

"I'll find him," she muttered in real irritation.

"Garsh..I saw him about an hour ago over in Toontown. Jessica Rabbit must need field servicing again." Goofy said to the wide-eyed shock of Becky and Milo.

Chase looked with amusement at both of the humans and at Goofy. "Well..." she began, "welcome to the sometimes real world."

"Excuse me, Chase. Keep Becky company while I make a call.", Milo said angrily and stormed into his office and slammed the door.

Outside the office, Chase said," Never a dull moment, I take it?"

"Right in one . We are short-handed and under skilled for a lot of tasks around here. Between plagues ,fires, floods and other crap...places like this one are low priority for most people except when they need relaxation and entertainment, then they SCREAM for it loudly.", Becky said slowly raising her voice to mask Milo's

Chase could just hear through the wall,"and you get here NOW DAMMIT AND YOU ZIP YOUR PANTS UP AND KEEP THEM UP!"

"Crap and more crap squared," said Becky philosophically.

Chase ran out witty retorts at that and she still had her mouth open when he came out of the office. His chin was set and his cheeks were flushed. He grumbled softly to himself.

The silence was a heavy weight until Goofy remarked in an even tone," Garly! It's strange to think how doing the right thing can hand a bunch of good people crap and more crap squared". He nodded and Chase looked like she had seen a ghost.

Becky nodded and sealed him up. "Alright, Goofy-One–You are good to go. Stop goofing about..OK?"

"Garsh, Miss Becky! I'd have to change my name then",he said reasonably. He put on his shirt and left the room with a wave and a smile. "Catch you'all on the flip-side."

Chase blinked and looked very young and pointed after Goofy and whispered in a loud voice, "Is THAT the problem you were telling...?"

"No,"said Milo simply. "THAT was weird. NOT a problem, though. That was....uhm....fairly normally weird. We have a REAL problem."

Jerry Reynolds rushed into the room with his tool satchel over his sholdure. He was flushed and grinned at them all and pronounced,"Hope that problem ain't me!"

Milo's cheek twitched.

"We have logs and camera records to look at...", Milo started and was promptly interrupted by Jerry.

"Whoa! Who is this? Noobie! Pleased to meetcha! I'm Jerry Reynolds, super-genius, and Olympic decathlon star, and all around ladies man."

Chase looked at him blankly like he was defective and said slowly,"AH-ha! Your reputation ...or lack there of precedes you. I'll try to over-look that anyway."

Milo interjected, "Lets go. Introductions in a minute. We need to stay focused. Or get focused."

Jerry said in irritation, "Hey! You folks shouldn't be talking about me behind my back! I'm just in touch with my humanity, is all." He smirked as usual. "Besides, How am I to know who is authorized to be here and talking with us? Hey! She's the new cyber-psychology major we begged for a couple of months ago, Isn't she? That's just great! Right in time!"

Eventually they got to meeting room 101 while Jerry suffered an excess of personality. Jerry told how Jessica Rabbit thought that a patron was stalking her and Jerry was there to take charge and call security to save the day when the poor joker showed up to woo her and sweep her off her feet and abscond with her over the sea-wall and so on.

He finally wound down from impressing everyone how capable and important he was, then Milo informed them of the 'Gadget" problem and what Dr' Fairweather said to him. They then watched the records from the cockpit recorder of the incident in question in silence.

Milo brought up the house lights and looked around at them all.

Jerry said, "Hellfire. I still don't see the problem. She didn't want to be handled and gave Billybob there the brush off," he waved a hand as if to brush off invisible lint and continued, "but we can't have the babe-bots bopping the dudes when they get 'friendly', can we? I'll get on the reaction and human-interaction sensory tests and set up for a full spread of quizzes . Great. That is ten hours worth of work before they link up for midnight-memory share. "

Chase was ashen "Jesus. That was ...I don't see...." She suddenly snapped into focus. "We have to segregate the Gadget units IMMEDIATELY and conduct blind interviews with each one of them. Gawd...it'll take the better part of a day just to do up the questions. We can't let them link up! If they share memories—Oh my GOD! It could spread to the others if it hasn't already. I better get on it."

Becky said while clenching her hands together ," I 'll set up the Venker tests and standard response tests to ping their CPU's and route sub-routine commands. It is possible that a bios corruption in one of them might be to blame. Remember Robin Hood? Simple but complicated. Lordy." She rolled her eyes.

Jerry laughed and Milo smiled and shook his head in disbelief. "Yeeaaaaah, bios! " Milo said with some irritation. To Chase's quizzical glance, Milo said, "The little fox-guy thought he WAS Robin Hood.. He wanted to rob from the rich and give to the poor and other such things. It was a form of cyber-psychosis affecting him. We had to physically subdue him. He wasn't actually dangerous, but he was running around the park and threatening people with a bow. THIS is a lower priority than that . ...But still....this is different. This is an 'Out-of-character' fault. One of the androids lied to a direct question and that is troubling. That is what we are investigating . Well people...lets get on it. I'll call the 'Gadget' units in and we'll collect info...",he trailed off as Chase emphatically interrupted him.

"No, we can't do that!" They looked at Chase quizzically. She continued, "We have to collect them QUIETLY. We can't let them know that they are in danger of discovery. We collect them one at a time and segregate them singly in holding areas. We treat them like collaborators and watch them for other aberrant behaviors individually . We don't want incorrect behaviors spreading to the other units in the pod, do we?"

Jerry smiled at Chase and said in a low and insinuating tone,"Hey. I like you. You are good looking as you are smart and DAMN, you're brilliant! I agree with Chase here. We have to do this on the QT! Jeez...we can't let the guilty one know. She might take hostages or run off or who knows what" Jerry sounded almost serious and sarcastic at the same time. Milo hated that about him.

She looked like she was about to bust out laughing and Milo rolled his eyes in disgust. "Right, Jerry! OK..Chase, you are right. I'll collect all five of them and bring them back here. Come on ,people...Let's move like we have a purpose."

They moved.

Milo considered getting security to accompany him to collect the units, but discarded that idea as sounding like overkill. He checked with Minerva, the Disney info-net Artificial Intellegence and located the units in the park.

The holographic interface of a Grecian goddess of wisdom appeared in the center of the table above a map of Walt Disney World. She spoke in low dulcet tones,"As per usual procedures, the units are spread all over the park.

"Let's see where they are. Five is still flying the 'Ranger-Wing', One is eating in the replicant mess-hall below the Grand Floridian Resort, Two is in Micky's Star-land at Toontown–unspecified purpose , Three is meet and greet on Main-street, USA. and four is over at Epcot on shepherd duty with a group of Chinese tourists, ", Minerva read aloud.

"I'll collect them in order and bring them in ,I guess", Milo said eagerly. These weird problems were what he lived for. The others nodded and went about their individual tasks as he exited out to the scooter depot. Milo snagged a four wheel scooter from the depot and took to the underground road.

Disney World had hundreds of miles of underground installations and roads to connect them all. Under every attraction from 'Pirates of the Caribbean' to 'Spaceship Earth' there is underground storage and basements and workshops for hundreds of Disney imagineers and now storage for hundreds of robots and animatronic androids and replicants in replication of beloved Disney characters. The main difference between animatronic androids and replicants, is that replicants are cyborgs. Living tissue over android endo-skeletons and Doorway-CPU driven computer wet-ware brains. The replicants have artificially grown medical-quality flesh and eat to power their bio-systems while powering up their internal motive-systems next to external broadcast power antenna. The ability to eat real food made the 3-P-R type replicants able to interact with patrons at an unprecedented level.

Milo was looking at the recharge seat that Gadget-1 was eating in. He was still struck by it's unnecessary complexity. She ate in a large mess hall silently with about a dozen other replicants. He was creeped out by the silence in which they ate and how they ALL looked at him when he came in. They ate a nutritious paste the look and consistency of wall-paper paste. Milo speculated that it probably was the same taste as wall-paper paste.

Oddly enough, Gadget-1 put down her spoon and dabbed her mouth on a napkin and stood up as he approached her. "Good afternoon, Mr. Finch. We need to talk." Her eyes flicked left and right. "Outside, if preferable."

He looked right and left as well. Doc, one of the Seven Dwarfs , locked eyes with him in a moment of unreadable expression. It left him wondering about a good many things. None of the Seven Dwarfs sat together to eat. All the characters in the hall sat apart from others in their pods.

He hated that term. 'Pod' made them sound like pod-people or whales. All it meant was the group of the same characters that synchronized memories each night at midnight to six A.M. each day while Disney World was shut down. Gadget sat with Doc, Gyro Gearloose (from Ducktales) and with Peg, Pete's wife from Goof Troop.. It was a programmed response to scan and identify all humans in their scanning range. Underground away from patrons, Sneezy didn't sneeze but deferred to all personnel working at Disney World. Milo felt like he was surrounded by pod-people right now.

"See you all later," she said pleasantly to her dinner companions. They nodded and went back to eating without a word. They kept watching Milo to see if he had instructions for them.

Woodenly, he said to Gadget-1,"Let's go. Now." He turned and exited quickly, Gadget in tow.

He wiped the cold sweat from his face and leaned against the wall in the corridor outside the mess hall.

"What? What was that going on in there?" he stared at Gadget, who fidgeted.

She blinked in surprise. "Lunch?"

He sighed heavily and groaned.

"Mr. Finch...I want to come clean. I lied to a direct question earlier today. I was afraid. I was at fault. Please don't de-activate me and take my brain out," she finished in a heated passionate plea for her life.

He was so shocked he almost fell down. "What is this? That? What?" He gasped the torrent out without thinking about it. He stared at her goggle-eyed for a speechless moment and swallowed hard.

"Ah, uhm, well....that would not be a desirable outcome to this matter. Don't worry. We'll get you set to rights." he finished as awkwardly as he dreaded. He just told a machine not to worry.

He feared he was losing his mind. "You had better come with me."

He got her back to the workshop without further incident. He secured her inside a holding area for individual replicants and let her start recharging again. He couldn't resist the urge and asked, "Is there anything you need?"

Gadget-One shook her head.

Now:

Gadget-Four shook her head in irritation

"I need my clothes", Gadget said grumpily.

"I've got your gloves and boots. They ...uh...cut your clothes off. Sorry", Milo said in a muttered rush.

"Golly....that is just great", she remarked flatly. "Let me see. I am naked under this hospital gown."

"I noticed", he said turning red.

"I have no body-power reserves. My human-like bio-system is fine, but very weak and bruised and punctured. We don't have access to a recharge facility. UTX is hunting for us. I think that the police are as well." She shivered in the chill morning air. He got off his raincoat and draped it over her. She hugged herself and curled up underneath the long coat. "Milo....what are we going to do?" She asked in a plaintive, lost tone.

"I don't know. We have got to find out why UTX wants you. Why did they kept you alive? Why are you a Gadget Hackwrench? Who was those men with the machine guns in the workshop?" He looked at the energy panel of the Boeing air-car. "Where will we get a charge for this thing?"

"My body is not a 'thing' ,thank you.", she said tiredly.

"Oh....sorry. I forgot. Where will we get you charged, too?.",he said dejectedly.

" 'TOO' ", she muttered in irritation. "Glad to see at least I am on the 'things- to-do' list, even if at the bottom."

"You DON'T have to be such a BI–', he bit off his comment in anger. He was caught off guard by the up swelling of rage. "Don't be sarcastic with me. I'm not up for it, Gadget", he snapped at her.

"If we are attacked again now....we will both die. You have what? Maybe one burst left in your needler. I barely held my own against a Military Specification Chaser android. I have no strength left. I can't protect you. I can't protect myself. I am strong as a normal human and as fast right now. I wouldn't last two seconds against anything UTX throws against us. We can't trust the police. We need allies in the long run.

"In the short run....If I don't get fully charged and the air-car too....we won't survive. That is not sarcasm. That is the cold facts as they stand" ,Gadget finished in a flat tone of voice , all emotion squeezed out of it.

They sat morosely in silence behind a McDonald's outside of Macon, Georgia in a run-down unfinished sub-division. The cool morning winds rattled and scrapped the long weeds against the air-car's hull while they sat in silent contemplation of the cruel twists of fate that had thrown them into such awful situation. The morning sun started to burn off the pall of grey mist that cloaked them in the hollow.

"Your aunt is out-of-the-question. They will be watching her. If we seek her out..." ,Gadget was interrupted by the view-phone in the Boeing going off. The chime and flicker on the screen indicated an incoming call. They looked at each other in dread..

Milo asked ashen faced, "Do you think it's a surrender-or-die?"

Gadget shrugged and shook her head. She leaned back and put her hand on the wifi antenna area and nodded. He swallowed hard and activated the phone. He expected Dr. Fairweather or even Mr. Matamoras.

Jerry frowned out at him and said, "Hey, buddy. I don't know where you are, but you really need to turn yourself in. We all know you tried to break into an UTX hospital in Chicago last night. For god's sake, man–stop it now! You went crazy with that machine-pistol and killed some of your co-workers and now your obsessive behavior about that animatronic unit! Her brain is a PRIMATE's. Like a chimp or something. Man, accept it! She ain't human. She is really a cyborg chimp brain processor with tons of wet-ware and implants. She's an experimental once- off trial unit. I knew and Dr. Fairweather knew. Is that why you shot me and kidnaped Dr. Fairweather?

"Turn yourself in ,Milo! You killed three people and kidnaped a good man! Let him go, man, let him go and turn yourself in! Milo you're crazy and you need help. Just let Dr. Fairweather go and bring back the unit and we'll make sure you'll get some help" , Jerry finished weeping with a passion that Milo was sure was false as plastic flowers.

The blood had drained from Milo's face and he felt so sick to his stomach he was afraid of barfing on the screen. Milo wanted to punch him or come out with a witty retort that would sear Jerry's soul to ash and explain everything to whoever else was watching this video.

"Y-you lying bastard. You liar" ,Milo gasped out in a bloodless tone. He turned off the video with a trembling hand. Milo clutched his chest and sank back into the pilot's seat shaking with a complex turn of emotions. He was completely floored by this turn of events. Tears ran down his cheeks and he whispered out, "Oh, god. God...I--WE are so screwed. We are screwed. Totally, TOTALLY screwed! Jules.......Dr, Fairweather.. What did they do to you? I killed? I didn't..." ,he clenched his eyes tightly shut and muttered, "...dammit. Oh, damn, damn, damn!.

Gadget put a hand over her mouth and then put a hand on Milo's sholdure. "Golly ....that–that wasn't good. I accessed the IAI (instant access internet) through the wifi. Dr. Fairweather's vehicle wasn't traced. All they could tell was that we were in America somewhere. They couldn't trace the satellite-uplink I downloaded the specifications for standard robot recharging stations. I think I can adapt one with some parts from an electronic store and a soldering iron.",Gadget said in an uncertain tone. She was out of her element dealing with such naked misery.

"I'll look in the back to see what Dr. Fairweather has stashed. Gosh! Maybe a mobile workshop? We could stand a little good luck." She started into the back area then pulled her hospital gown down to a level of modesty. She turned red, keeping the gown closed by her left hand holding the back seam closed. She muttered in frustration, "A pair of pants wouldn't hurt either."

She clambered into the back wishing Milo would look. She had only seen one person look so miserable before. She tore her mind off of that thought and concentrated on the task of trying to find parts to recharge her power-cells back to full and maybe get the air-car back into the air. The back had boxes of tools and testing equipment and something she was looking for: an emergency recharge harness for replicants

"HEY! Golly, look what I found!" She announced victoriously.

Then:

"Look what I found!" Shouted Anvil Clay in surprise and irritation. He was a permanently rumpled man in a suit and was almost six and a half feet tall with thinning hair and bird-like mannerisms. He glared at Milo in contemptuous displeasure. "So? Is it true? You're going to pull all the Gadget units because one didn't want to have sex in front of airplane full of children?"

Milo skidded to a stop five feet in front of Anvil and fifty feet down the road in Toontown in Micky's Starland from Gadget-2 who was being photographed with some children. Milo rolled his eyes and muttered to himself,"Oh, crap."

Anvil strode up to him and stood nose-to-nose with him. The one thing Milo could NOT stand about Anvil was how he was a personal-space invader. Milo drew back as Anvil launched into his tirade. "You know, Milo, that I like you, but COME ON! You cut me out of the freaking loop this time. I am a SENIOR Replicant handler and in CHARGE of the Rescue Ranger pods! I have authority and responsibility senior to the technical staff. I was appointed a supervisor ten years ago and you were appointed supervisor when? Im sorry...you didn't work here ten years ago! What is wrong with you and this mad power-grab? You UTX people are all alike! I've worked here before the take-over when Disney values meant something!"

Milo responded at that jibe, "Anvil!" He hissed quietly. "Not like this in front of the patrons. I am NOT just a UTX employee. 'YOUR' Gadget units are acting pretty damned strange. As of this morning, I suspended their free-roam license and pulling the whole lot of their pod OFF-LINE to be re-evaluated effective immediately! Something is happening...",Milo was interrupted as Anvil got redder and angrier.

A small grief-stricken voice from Gadget-2 broke in. She was openly teared up and said, "Golly, Anvil....Mr. Finch... please don't fight like this over me in front of the patrons." Milo looked suprised and even Anvil was caught off-guard by this meek, humble looking mouse-girl fidgeting uncomfortable. "I'll come with you. Please stop fighting" ,she whispered tersely, her head down-turned, tears running down her cheeks.

Milo glanced about him at a couple of people who were trying not to stare at them. A couple of teen-agers in fluorescent clothes gawked openly. Anvil nodded. He whispered to Milo,"Sorry. You got my professional goat and we need to take this ..elsewhere more suitable. I think I..." ,he was interrupted by the shrill emergency tone of Milo's cell phone. As Milo picked up, Anvil's phone made a similar attention tone .

Jerry was shouting over it as soon as it connected, "MILO! Jeez-sus! You gotta get over to the Discovery Island side of the Contemporary Resort! From the sound of it–Gadget-4 just drowned a kid at a birthday party on a pontoon boat there. Security is en route to that location ! Jeez, get your ass over there quick!"

Apparently Gadget-2 had been listening in to one or both conversations and when Anvil gasped in shock and shot Milo a look over terror suffused with shame, Gadget-2 said loudly with an angry look, "She wouldn't do THAT! EVER!" and before either could react, sprinted off in the direction of the Contemporary Resort as fast as her short legs could. That was considerably faster than an unmodified human.

"God", Anvil shouted and tore off into the parting crowd after her.

"STOP! WAIT! " Milo's shouts had no effect on either one and he ran off after the two of them. Milo had run some track in college, but he was out of shape and the half-mile sprint to the far side of the Contemporary Resort almost gave him a heart-attack. As it usually happens, the only available Segway people-mover got snagged by Anvil. He and Gadget-2 stood around an aspirating Gadget model who looked mostly drowned as Milo ran up onto the scene. She was flanked on either side by armed security. Gadget-2 was slapping Gadget-4 on the back to get her to cough up water.

Chinese Secret Service and American Secret-Service were present on the scene and they eyed everyone warily while UTX 210's manned the crowd, pushing back the curious. An ambulance aerodyne rose skyward with a blaze of lights and sirens. Several people stood about talking to the Secret Service people of both nations and pointing to an upper floor of the resort where a newly-wed couple were looking out from their broken balcony window.

He spied the why of the Security. He spotted the aged Chinese woman at the center of the storm. The Chinese ambassador seemed unhurt as he jogged up out of breath. She was a tall thin woman with angular features and long iron-grey hair worn in a single braid.

Anvil pointed at him and smiled and waved with a huge grin on his face.. That brought Milo up short and left him in a grand state of utter confusion as a senior U.S. Secret Service agent came up to him ,flashed an I-D badge and said, "My name is Agent Johnson, United States Secret Service. We're told by that man over there, who is identified as one Mister Anvil Clay, a senior supervisor here, that you are in fact. in charge here. Is this correct?"

Milo glared heatedly at the smug bastard grinning at him while nodding his head at Milo like a bobble-head doll. What WAS he so damned smug about? One of the Emergency responders came up to Gadget-4 and put an oxygen mask on her face. The sight of that bothered him.

"They're programmed NOT to go into water deeper than they can wade. Except for the mer-folk and some other specially engineered ones. They sink like rocks! They can't swim. Their bodies are to dense. They don't float. SHE can't swim." he gasped out in amazement, and still breathless from his run.

Gadget-2 stood up and stared at him with burning intensity across the 60 foot distance and nodded at him. She then sat down next to the unit number four and put an arm across her shoulders .

"Well then...Good job, Mr Finch" , said the stern man with mirror-shades. Someone owes you or HER their life.",he nodded towards the Gadget-4 with the oxygen mask on. "It's just ...well..a bit odd, don't you think? A robot with an oxygen bottle? Make sure she doesn't rust. Good-day ,Mr. Finch" He said and walked over to his contemporaries to tell them what he had learned.

Milo tiredly jogged over to the two Gadgets and Anvil and the gaggle of armed security stood by at. Milo asked in breathless confusion, "What? What in HELL.... is going on here? Why ...guns? Would somebody tell .......me what happened here?"

Anvil said insinuatingly ," You Know..Milo...about what you said just a couple of minutes ago? Just maybe....we need to talk some place more....uhm, PRIVATE!" He turned to Gadget-2 and said gently,"Honey, nearest exit?"

She stood up and pointed to a pair of black panels in the bottom wall of a short building just 10 yards away. "It leads down to junction 10 and 21"

One of the security men said to Milo," Sir? We confiscated this firearm from this replicant.",He pulled out a peculiar looking revolver with a smallish grip formed from a u-shaped bracket and a kind of take-up spool like a fishing reel. He didn't recognize it, though Anvil did.

"That's Gadget's harpoon pistol from 'Lady Mouse'. From back in the 2060's. I told you clowns—that isn't intended as a weapon! It is a working prop!" Anvil argued, waving his hands around.

The security man shrugged and shook his head. "Sir–it doesn't matter! These are ONLY used with permission AND ONLY in authorized places. We have standard operating procedures! She is a rogue! They were pulled from operations this morning by order of Milo Finch and the pulled replicant discharged a firearm! It must be terminated as a danger to the public as per article 1210 of the general rules in the employee handbook. There are no stated exceptions.", said the security guard sullenly. "Personally I think it sucks that we have to shoot her for saving that boy's life."

Both Gadgets looked at other in horror and shivered. Number four buried her face in number two's neck and sobbed in fear. "I don't want to die. Please." It sounded to Milo like a young girl begging for her life. "It's not fair."

Milo interjected angrily, "NOONE is shooting anyone! We will continue this downstairs. Please copy all the surveillance videos and any vid's from any patrons who might have seen anything of use."

"Come on," he said sullenly as well. This had turned into a first order disaster for him. He had to meet with Dr. Fairweather as soon as humanly possible.

"What do you mean that Jules Fairweather is GONE?" Milo was stricken. Dr. Fairweather's secretary was a Daisy Duck model from the first line of bio-ware bodies that UTX produced a decade ago to replace the all artificial units produced fifteen years ago. The first bio-ware bodies interacted with the Doorway-CPU's in unpredictable ways til they got the bugs worked out. Daisy was a defective duck. Her left hand trembled uncontrollably as she waved both hands widely.

" He was called away on UTX business in the Yucatan. He left fifteen minutes ago. He isn't available! I'm sorry, Milo", she said helplessly . "He said you have to view your mail. He left you the keys to his air car."

"WHAT? How did he get to the Yucatan? We have a ....SITUATION! I don't have the authority to deal with this! He is the Chief Operations Officer for Walt Disney World, for crying out loud!" Milo felt like he had fallen off into the deep end of the ocean now.

"Mister Matamoros sent his personal transport for Mister Fairweather. It was strictly on the QT and on a need to know basis.," she said as she pulled out a drawer. She handed him a floppy chip. The four inch by four inch UTX matrix storage sheet was the 2080's answer to the DVD and CDR technology. Paper thin and capable of storing over a thousand gigabytes of information in its shock and magnetic proof format.. Paper-thin and cheap as paper, they secured UTX's place as the information technology powerhouse that bought up Microsoft , Dell, IBM, Firestar and almost all the other program houses and computer manufacturers in the world.

"You know the old joke, don't you, Milo? 'When Mister Matamoros says jump...' ", Daisy began.

" '...God asks how high?' Yes, Daisy. I heard it.", Milo said sourly as he took the floppy-chip from her soft white hand. He couldn't help thinking it,'why does a duck-girl have soft white hands?' He shook his head and felt tense. "I just have a ...bad feeling about this. I can't explain it. Let me know if he contacts you."

"Uhmmmm, good luck, Milo. I know he believes in you." She sighed and went back to working on requisition forms and resource allocation forms.

He turned and left, pausing at the outer door for a moment and looked at Daisy-1. She looked worried. She stopped and looked at him.

"Anything else, Milo?" She looked at him intently.

"No ,nothing, Daisy. He'll be fine," he said feeling weirdly hollow inside.

Daisy smiled and he left. He felt so weird talking to her like a real person. She was a made thing, he told himself He still related as if she was real. SHE looked like a duck-girl, he was very afraid that Gadget's more human look would affect him more.

Maybe it already had.

The bright lights hurt Gadget-4's eyes as she continued her debriefing. "We left Space-ship Earth in Epcot Center and I conducted the tourist party to the next stop along on the itinerary to a rented pontoon-boat where the Lady Fu was celebrating her 89th birthday. She related to me that she remembered the New Rescue Rangers from the 2020's but grew up with the originals in sub–" she paused as Jerry interupted.

"Fascinating! Can you get to what HAPPENED?" Jerry huffed and fidgeted and even Milo shifted around uncomfortably. Milo glanced over at the clock on the wall which read 11:35:02 P.M. They had been at it for nine hours and going was slow.

Becky said gently to Gadget-4, "Four, we know why her Ladyship wanted you to conduct the tour. That and she wanted to see first-hand what American and Malaysian technology had come up with. OH BOY! She got an eye-full !" She broke off and glanced about the crowded room.

Becky glanced at Chase, Milo, Jerry and Anvil. Behind Gadget-4 was Ricky from Security and an UTX model 210. Becky smiled and shook her head,"Sorry. Lost focus for a moment. Four! You arrived at the pontoon-boat–what happened then?"

Becky got up and went over to the table where they had coffee and doughnuts at. She poured herself a huge mug of coffee and waved the pot at everyone and raised her eyebrows.

Jerry held up a hand and a cup. Chase frowned and remarked,"No way! I'm about to float away." She looked pleadingly at Milo and asked in a wheedling tone ," Hey, big boss? Can we take a break? I know you know best, but it has been NINE hours..."

Milo was tired too, but he said while rubbing his face,"No, I'm sorry. Not right now. We'll break after mid-night. OK?" Milo stopped and looked at Becky and exclaimed,"What in hell are you doing?"

Becky froze in mid-pour over Gadget's cup. It was half-way full of coffee. Becky looked at Milo quizzically and asked slowly, "Look. I am tired and might be missing something....but –what?"

"Employee guide-lines! Don't give mind-altering substances to replicants! Caffeine! You know? The number one drug of choice for the whole freaking world?" Milo sounded shrill at the end of his tirade. Becky's eyes had narrowed to slits and she frowned.

Jerry smirked at him and shook his head. Anvil said quietly, "Milo...perhaps YOU should switch to decaf?" Anvil looked at him disapprovingly and shook his head.

"Mr. Finch, you can have my cup of decaf if you want. I'm just thirsty. Can I have some water?" Came Gadget-4's quiet question.

Becky remarked sharply,"Why, YES-sah, Mistah Finch–I sure do know what the 'Employee Handbook' does say! It's the DECAF pot. All you had to do was ask! Milo–you sir are NOT being very people-friendly!"

Chase jumped in, an raised her voice, "PEOPLE! Don't self-destruct!" She put a hand to her forehead and sighed with her eyes closed. "People–we looked at HOURS of video from a hundred different angles and we can't tell what...", she looked down at one of the piles of paper prints in front of her and continued,"... Fu Wing, age 11 , sex :male....fell over. He was on the outer edge and fell in. Four jumped in. She rescued him. We need to find out from her, what happened from her perspective. We are all tired and stressed out and don't want to screw this up." She trailed off helplessly and looked at Milo.

Milo nodded and sighed. "You are right, Chase. We keep drifting off subject.." He turned back to Gadget-4 and said, "Keep the coffee. If it is decaf, no problem. You approached the pontoon boat.... and?"

Gadget sipped the decaf and cleared her throat to continue. Milo frowned at the all-to-human mannerisms she had. She began again simply, " We came up to the pontoon boat and I directed everyone to the bathrooms and offered to aid Fu Ming, that's the boy's mother, with him if she required it. She decline it. I really wanted to help. He was...not like anyone I had ever interacted with before. He was special and I don't mean in a disabled way either.

"I never met ANYONE with Lefrene syndrome so young. Most I ever dealt with were twenties or thirties in age. They stood around and looked at him when he wanted, but I knew what he wanted."

Chase interrupted, "What do you mean, 'KNEW'? "

Gadget-4 looked blankly for a moment and said with a slight smile,"Golly! To have knowledge of through observation, inquiry, or gained information. To be sure of something. You know? Knew. I observed–inquired and then gained information from. Knew! He–he liked me. He said so."

Jerry said,"WHOA! Hold on a minute! The kid has the shakes and can hardly text a message and on top of that--he is mute! How did he tell you diddly-squat?"

She frowned. After a moment she frowned and said,"I can't tell you."

The room was silent for a moment, and then exploded in noise as EVERYONE tried to ask different questions simultaneously. Milo jumped up and waved everyone to silence . He asked intently, "Do you mean 'CAN'T' or 'WON'T'? "

"I don't have the words to explain it. It was like the mind-link from hard-line access during the nightly memory synchronization with other pod-members. Except...it wasn't. Maybe it was ....instinct?" Gadget-4 asked fumbling about for words in the explosive verbal mine-field she suddenly found herself in.

The room exploded louder this time. Anvil was wholly in Gadget-4's corner, Jerry was shocked and put off, Becky was excited with the new discovery and burbling questions so fast noone could answer , Chase was asking about dreams or something, even Ricky got in on this and was asking about prior occurrences. Gadget's ears folded down and she looked small and lost.

And afraid. Very afraid.

Milo angrily slapped the table with his hand it made a loud 'BLAM'. Everyone flinched. "SHUT UP! Everyone just be quiet!"

Gadget flinched and teared up. The tears spilled down her cheeks and her ears twitched. She trembled. Chase acted without thinking. She got up and went around to Gadget-4 and hugged her and said softly, while stroking her cheek and looking into her face,"It's ok, honey. No one is mad at you."

Jerry stared in disbelief and burst out laughing, Anvil looked satisfied and nodded, Becky put a hand over her face and Ricky stood there with his mouth open. Milo closed HIS open mouth and clenched his fists and asked with laser-like intensity, "Chase? What in god's name are you doing? She is a mechanism! You know–a robot with bio-components and very sophisticated software? Now YOU of all people are treating her like a person! Can you ACT like a professional?"

Chase stood up and turned red as she turned on her heel and swung to face Milo. "I AM a professional! If it acts like a human–treat it like a human, but never forget what it is! I treated it like a human! I know what it is! Why don't you treat ME like a human? Hunh?"

Milo felt his face heat up as he turned red in turn. He opened his mouth to speak and he knew he was going to be shrill.

"Gosh--Maybe...you should ALL switch to decaf?"

Gadget-4's off-the-cuff comment caught them all off guard. Even Milo had to laugh at that. The tension somewhat subsided in the room. People sat back down and breathed a bit deeper.

Milo took a deep breath and said levelly, " Alright, folks....we are almost through for the night. IF we can manage to get through the rest of Four's debriefing with out getting off track AGAIN! We need to ask what happened. Not about weird things to the side. If they seem important–make a footnote on your PDA transcription and we'll get back to it...tomorrow probably."

He fell back into his chair in a tired slump. Chase returned to her chair and Milo prodded Four with a question," You offered to help the kid in the bathroom–the mother turned you down–then what happened?"

"I was signaled by Minerva, the Disney central computer, to put on a personal flotation device since I was scheduled to go out on one of the lagoons. I was already talking with Cherry McLancaster, the part-timer working at the Contemporary Resort, to do just the same. She attached it to my web gear under my jacket. She noted that I had the harpoon pistol and did a check with security as per standard operating procedure", she said plainly in a professional manner.

Ricky interjected,"That's when we became aware of a potential problem with a firearm violation. We already interviewed Cherry McLancaster and she seemed very nervous, but that is probably due to her being a new employee."

Chase muttered sourly, "Can't imagine! I'm new and a bundle of nerves now ,too!"

Becky nodded as well.

Gadget-4 giggled and Milo made a noise to her to continue. Gadget-4 took a deep breath and did so. "I donned the personal floatation device and rejoined the tour. Elapsed time away from tour was less than two minutes, thirty-six seconds. I helped get Fu Wing into his Segway disability transporter to get him up onto the boat.. We departed the Contemporary Resort dock at 12:51 P.M. At 12:53 , Wing was placed in a chair at the end of the boat , next to his Grand-mother. I was at the other end of the boat at 12:59 when I saw Wing stand up. He seemed agitated and appeared to lose his footing and slip off the end of the boat.

" 'WING! Man OVERBOARD!' I shouted and ran to the other end of the long pontoon boat. The boat coasted to a stop as the motors were cut. Several male relatives dove overboard to search and rescue Wing. They complained about not seeing him in the murky water."

"I activated the personal floatation device and pulled down my goggles. I noted then that the P.F.D. was defective and NOT deploying. Wing was going to die. I hyperventilated, did an estimate of where he would be if he sank at the same speed as myself, then over-rode my basic programming restraints by redirecting my personality overrides and leapt thirty-five feet to the spot he went under at."

"I sank quickly, but could see due to the goggles. The water was fifteen feet deep at that spot and he was unmoving on the bottom. I spotter an UTX model 2201 Sea-scraper remotely-controlled drone on the bottom next to Wing . Operational condition, I think It took me over a minute to strip off his exo-skeleton. ",Gadget-4 was interrupted by Becky.

"Explains why he was naked when the ambulance arrived", she remarked looking stricken. "My god. I didn't know he couldn't float." Becky glanced around and went back to her read-outs. Jerry gave her a peculiar look and made notes in his PDA.

Four continued, "I then propelled us to the surface as quickly as possible. I gulped air and then drew the harpoon pistol. I sank when I did so, but it was his only chance. I went to full overdrive in character and fired the pistol at the top-floor of the resort building and thumbed the take-up reel active."

"I aspirated water as we came ashore. I was unable to perform rescue breathing on him, but luckily Gadget number two was there to perform rescue-breathing on him while I performed CPR until the Rescue Rangers...OOPS!" She smiled warmly , batting her forehead with a closed fist and continued while several people laughed at her all-to-human mistake of phrase. "I meant 'Rescue Responders' could get on scene with an lung-bag and oxygen. They put him on the ambulance and that was that",she finished with a small measure of pride in her voice. "I'm so glad he didn't die."

Jerry jumped up and exclaimed angrily, "Jesus! If any son-of-a-bitch wants to shoot her for that, I'll quit in protest and tell the media! You just watch me!"

"Jerry, sit down" ,Milo said tiredly,"Nobody is to be shot! Period. I have authority from Dr. Fairweather to make that so. If I had known that number four was dressed out in Full regalia and that included a prop...a working prop pistol! I would have done something different to round up the Gadget units. This 'lets shoot Gadget for rescuing someone' fiasco IS my fault for going to gung-ho on an investigation involving these very units."

He waved a tired hand at them and said yawning,"We'll convene in the morning after we put this unit in the individual recharge tank for the night. We'll look into THIS morning's activity tomorrow morning. The number of weird things have multiplied exponentially in this investigation."

Gadget-4 stood up and looked uncomfortable. She cleared her throat.

"Mr. Finch...I want to come clean. I lied to a direct question earlier today. I was afraid. I was at fault. Please don't de-activate me and take my brain out," she finished in a heated passionate plea for her life.

Jerry exclaimed in exasperatered surprise,"Oh Holy CRAP!"

Becky complained, "I have a headache and a Deja vu!"

Milo experienced a deja vu from earlier in the day. He slumped back in his chair and covered his face in his hands and groaned, "OH my God! I didn't just hear that?"

Now:

He looked at her in stupefied amazement and sighed , "Oh God–I didn't hear that right?"

Gadget was covered head to foot in a white sheet, with a slit cut for her eyes and was wearing her gloves and boots. She had donned the recharge rectenna harness and cable-connector under her impromptu 'chador'

She giggled and said, "Ahem–I am a Mouslim! Great disguise to get me inside the Micky-Dee's, hunh? I only have to get to the recharge closet for their robots and plug in! It should be in the corridor going to the bath-rooms. Should be relatively simple. Right?"

He groaned and sighed,"We're all going to die." Then hid his face in his hands.

After a moment he said,"OK, come here....I need to tie your ears down." He retied her head-dress and said,"This is looney. You will be spotted. This is looney!"

One of her legs seemed to twitch. She remarked, sounding more upbeat than she felt, "Don't be such a downer, Milo. I know you're tired. We can't give up."

"Fine", he said with a sinking sense of finality. He had never felt more helpless or hopeless in his life. He looked out at the trees and blowing weeds and said," I'll wait here."

"Look, Mr Finch! I suggest you use your intellect to come up with a plan. I am not with out resource. The Chinese ambassador's grandson owes his life to me. Maybe we could run to China for help? It isn't a great idea...but it is something to work on. How about the U.S. Government for help? I mean...we really didn't do anything. Think of something! I'll be back as soon as I can. Let me have your free cash card. I'll pick up lunch for us" ,she said urgently.

"You must have been some kind of pushy, driven woman while you were alive. I mean while in your original body. You know what I mean. Sheesh." He finished feeling particularly muddle-headed. He was growing to appreciate her drive and not giving up.

She chortled and nodded, "You bet! I'm just running on a 'WWGD?' You know...'What Would Gadget Do? ' Golly–I'm not sure that any of my original personality is left. How would I know? I have been synchronizing with three other replicants for over three years and adjusting memories during link-up! I'll be back." She took Milo's No-owner cash-card and slipped out the door.

She shut the door behind her and started through the field of weeds as high as she was. After a moment he thought of something and flung open the pilot -side door and stuck his head out and yelled after her,"What if you get caught? HUNH? WHAT THEN?"

He saw a little hand in the distance wave and disappear into the weeds topping the rise behind the McDonald's. He closed the door and slumped into the seat. He checked the power-level for what seemed the hundredth time. One take-off and landing at a flight distance of 20 miles or one minute of hover left. They could lengthen that if they chucked everything in the back and add maybe another ten miles of level flight.

He didn't know what they might need out of the back. He was so tired, he couldn't think clearly. He put on the floppy-chip and played his last message from Dr Fairweather.

Doctor Fairweather looked worried and looking more like his age of sixty. He fidgeted for a moment and spoke in his deeply resonant voice,"My boy...I have been called to the UTX headquarters in the Yucatan. Things are unraveling. Listen to me ,Milo. I've left my authority to you until I return. The keys to my special Boeing Air-car are in your IN box at the Employee Mail Post-office. It is very fast, very...special. Be quick about your investigation of those units. You are running out of time on this. I wish this hadn't come out this quickly. Choose your friends carefully but don't trust them. He can buy the moon and carve it into dust. His power uses him now without regard for the 'little' people. He has opened Pandora's box. He will want the key to the box back. You are a good man. You have your faults, but you can be a hero if you do what good men do. Follow your heart. Farewell, Milo Finch", he finished with the finality of a man going to his death.

Milo played it two more times and didn't understand any better than he did originally. Jules had left him a dozen pass-codes as well. He became convinced that the message was edited for content. Either key-words had been deleted or added. If he wanted to say as much as possible without detection...key-words were deleted. What was he trying to tell him? Milo was afraid he would go to his grave never knowing what was going on. He knew it was worth a lot. It was a life and death matter.

Gadget entered the fast-food restaurant ,her determination steeled. She got some curious and some hostile looks as she came inside. The girl behind the counter looked at her with a frozen smile and said, "Welcome to McDonald's. May I take your order?"

She froze up momentarily by indecision. She said in an undefinable accent,"Bathroom please?"

"Around the corner. Just follow the signs.....uh..ma'am", the counter-girl said uncertain of who she was addressing.

Gadget went around the corner and followed the signs. She passed an elderly couple and a bunch of young teenagers. She passed a service robot waxing the floor. It was a UTX model 212 which looked like a series of barrels on their side topped by a number of arms and a head with four eyes in a 360 degree field of vision.. The blue and silver machine purred along past the older couple and she passed by a teenaged server cleaning a table, who nodded at her and stared as the disguised Gadget entered the bathroom corridor.

She went into the woman's room first to clean up. She checked the stalls and went into one. Later, she went up to the sink ,stashing her gloves in her belt and was washing her hands when the older woman came in. Gadget panicked inside and tried not to shake as she continued to wash. The older woman came up to the other sink and washed as well.

"So–you're an Islamic? You're pale ,too. Are you American?"

Gadget tried to keep her voice level and said ," Yes, ma'am.."

She finished and decided not to put on her gloves. She willed herself not to run. The woman continued," You have the largest blue eyes I have ever seen. You must be a pretty little girl. You won't show me your face, will you?"

Gadget wondered for an instant if the old woman would have a heart-attack if she did show her face to her. Did she have a living Grand-mother? Is this her? A mother? A family? She turned to the white-haired woman and said, suddenly overcome with sadness,"No. I'd...get into trouble. I'm–I'm sorry. Thank you, ma'am."

"Dear, what's wrong?" The woman was filled with concern and care.

Gadget paused, torn between telling the truth, weeping in self-pity and lying. She compromised and said,"You just remind me of my Grandmother. I haven't seen her in years. I miss her. I'm sorry. I better go. Good bye. ...And thank you, ma'am for bringing back memories."

The woman came over and suddenly hugged Gadget. Gadget's heart leapt into her throat at that and she just locked up. The woman was startled at feeling the rectenna beneath Gadget's faux chador.. The woman held Gadget at arm's length and stared at her intently. Gadget thought at warp-speed. The woman asked in a careful voice,"What's this? What do you have on under this robe thing?"

"Ah..uhm..exo-skeleton! Lefrene's Syndrome. Born with it. I have trouble moving The chador helps me blend in..", Gadget gasped out in a rush of half-truths and mis-statements that were sort of true, only if you knew the whole truth.

The woman looked so sad, Gadget wanted to cry as the older woman said sadly, " My grand-daughter, Kayla, died from it. You poor thing. I KNEW something was wrong with you, the way you sort of stumbled and staggered in. You have it bad or.." , she drifted off in an unspoken question.

Gadget had a brainstorm. She said sadly to the woman,"My batteries have run down. I am new around here and far from home. Is there a place I can recharge around here?" The woman wouldn't leave her alone, but this might give her an 'in' to use the recharger in peace and legitimately too.

The woman smiled and said,"My name is Tiffany Williams. I live no more than a block down the road in the Lavergne subdivision. Larry and I haven't had visitors in a long while. We have a caretaker to clean up around the house . You can over to our house and recharge your Exo-thingee. And sit down and relax. We won't hurt you."

She was really torn to run off with the grand-motherly woman, but said,"I wouldn't make it. I don't want to be carried."

She laughed and said," That's alright. We might be kidnappers or such. Come with me. Wait."

"What is your name?"

Gadget thought for a moment and said, "Trixie Hansmaus."

"Alright, Trixie, Come with me."

The woman marched 'Trixie' out of the bathroom and up to the counter. She explained plaintively and begged for a recharge port. The people behind the counter were happy to oblige 'Trixie''s handicap and brought a chair around to the closet where the recharge port was at and sat her down. Gadget fished out the cord and plugged the three pronged ,220 volt plug into the receptacle, careful to flash anyone a naked leg, free of exo-skeleton . The game would be over then.

'Trixie' turned to Tiffany and said, "I'm going to nap for a couple of minutes while I recharge. Can you make sure I'm not disturbed?"

The woman looked at her husband who said ,"We'll do what we can."

Gadget teared up and choked out, "Thank you, Larry and Tiffany."

She set her internal clock for a five minute cycle. She fell asleep for the five minutes of recharge she was hooked up for. It was an autonomic function that she was slave to. She dreaded it.

She woke up with a start. Tiffany was holding her hands counting fingers. "They're artificial", Gadget exclaimed, in explanation. Tiffany looked surprised.

"So are my eyes. There isn't much left of the original me. Sorry. I should have been more honest. My ...",she thought for a moment how to take advantage of this situation and help Milo ,too. She couldn't just abandon him. She continued,"...BROTHER, Jason is sleeping behind the restaurant in the field. We've been on the road for days... if your kind offer is still open to recharge at your house...I could sleep on the floor, while I recharge my dead cells and he could watch over me. Please....we wouldn't be any bother. I'm at ...let's see",she checked her internal power reader and announced,"one half of one percent total power. That is enough to wake ..Jason and go to your house with out being carried.", she wheedled as best as she could.

Tiffany said,"You could also use some clothes and a bath and a warm bed and a hot meal. You and your brother could stay with us over night and leave in the morning." The older woman looked at her husband, Larry.

"I suppose so", he gruffly remarked. He was stern looking and very tall.

Gadget threw her arms around Tiffany and chirped," Oh, thank you! Let me go get Mi–brother!" She grimaced from almost slipping up so handily. She released the old woman reluctantly and ran to go get Milo. "I'll be right back! Just wait!"

Tiffany looked at her husband and said ,"She is awfully strong for her size."

"Diamond" ,He said to her, using his pet name for her,"...are you sure about this? They are strangers!"

"Teddy-bear...they are kids in need. It is only for the night. Besides...you are an ex-detective with Atlanta Police. If they're dangerous...YOU'll know " She had the weirdest feeling that she had met the girl somewhere before. She knew that voice from...somewhere. It would come to her eventually.

Milo was shocked and surprised, to say the least, but in turn desperate. "Are you CRAZY, Miss 'I'm-actually-a-little-mouse-girl'?!"

"Milo–I have a really good feeling from these people. We should try this. ...Unless of course you have come up with a brilliant plan in the mean-time?" Gadget either sounded hopeful or sarcastic or both. Milo was to tired to care.

"Let's do it. I hope for a warm bath at least." He muttered softly "If this works–you scored really well for us, Gadget"

"Trixie Hansmaus. The German version of the 'Gadget Hackwrench isn't well known, Jason. ....My brother." She giggled.

He frowned and gathered up their meager possessions and left the air-car. He turned on the camouflage feature and it faded into the weeds. He sighed,"After a week, the batteries will die and it'll be more visible. Unless someone discovers it in the mean-time."

"You live in a bleak world, Milo", she said as she shouldered a small bag of tools.

"Allah Akbar and such" , he said sullenly following along behind her. "I have to get in practice, not being a practicing 'Mouslim'.".

She was still giggling when they met up with Tiffany and Larry. They exchanged greetings and walked over to the older couple's house in the Lavergne subdivision. It was a two hundred year old Victorian house that looked very dilapidated . The yard was being cut by an older model I.B.M. model 23 caretaker robot.

" HEY!" Milo exclaimed in wonder and remarked admiringly,"You never see these anymore? Why not a newer UTX model?" He looked at Larry.

Larry pondered while they walked up to the porch and said quietly,"I hate those UTX bastards. I don't like them and I certainly don't trust them at all."

Gadget a.k.a. Trixie said with a knowing smile in her voice, "We don't either! Some of them are very bad!"

Milo whispered to Gadget," We're just staying the night? Right?"

Gadget gave him a dirty look, and in they went.


	2. The Mice in the Walls

Chapter 2: The Mice in the Walls

Then:

Gadget-four looked into the isolation room that was no bigger than a closet and asked in a small voice, "We're only staying the night? Right?"

Becky frowned and shrugged. "I hope so. We'll get things figured out quickly enough." She looked guiltily at Four and pushed her gently into the room ,toward the recharge chair.

"Goodnight",Becky said with a serious and uncertain tone.

"Good–", the swish and KTHUNK of the door locks thudding into place crashed Four's hopes as she finished despairingly,"–night." For the first time in her existence, Gadget-four felt like a prisoner and she didn't like it. She looked around the small ,white-painted closet with a single overhead light, recharge chair, food slot and toilet slot in the floor.

She sighed quietly, "They put me in a cell. 'A small compartment, cavity, or bounded space: as a : 'one of the compartments of a honeycomb' Lucky me! They must think I'm sweet as honey" ,she quipped as she stripped out of her clothes and folded them up. She put them on the top shelf and stood over the toilet drain and took a turn under the shower to soap up. She scrubbed the day's dirt off and took another turn under the shower to rinse.

She went over to the chair and sat down after the blow-driers blew her dry. She took the provided brush and brushed out her hair and stuck the brush back into the food slot and awaited dinner. She sat in the recharge-chair and it closed up on her. The recycled plastic food-tray with detachable spoon slid out of the wall food-slot. She knew she had fifteen minutes to finish and put it back before they powered her down. She broke off the spoon and paused in the first mouthful.

The faint squeak caught her by surprise. It read from Two, saying,"Four! I'm sorry. It's my fault! Forgive me. I WILL make things right or die trying!"

Four used her ears and spatially located . Two was next door and Four composed a squeak message back. While she was writing it, One interjected via squeak-mail,"No talk of dying. Milo Finch is open to approach. Anvil helps. Chase is dangerous. Warning!"

Four read off via squeak,"Concurrence with One. Plus–Becky is reasonable but scared of something. Jerry supports fully. Milo has deciding power. Is undecided. Doctor Fairweather is gone. No location. Recharge needed."

Three squeaked, "Ignorance. Fear. Very afraid."

Two squeak-mailed, "Hugs! Affection, and care. I will protect you Three."

One responded, "All are afraid. If worst happens: One, Two and Four will save you and Five. Luck to all. End transmission."

All but number Five responded, "Luck".

Four ate her late-night paste dinner and sat down. She reflected in the instant of shut down, that this was the FIRST time in her existence she would be unlinked in sleep while still in Disney World and this disturbed her.

In meeting room 101, Milo and Chase watched the Gadgets squeak in the low ultrasonic to each other and watched them turn off to recharge. Given the wide reactions of the various Gadgets–they WERE talking together! Milo was trembling when he asked into the air in a shaky voice,"Minerva! D-d-did you g-g-get that?" He cursed under his breath how shaky he sounded. He tried not to think about his reaction to the naked, soapy mouse-girls taking turns under the shower.

He kept his eyes on unit number Two. She was G-rated because she was built without any naughty bits, not even a navel. It was just a couple of years after the plague that public tastes changed so radically as to be unrecognizable to previous generations. Or perhaps it was the introduction of the 'Anatomically -correct Bio-ware Replicant Mark 20 android' by UTX that changed tastes.

Maybe UTX was manipulating more than just the market of public opinion?

"Yes, Milo. It was ultra-sonic squeaks emitted by Gadget units numbers One ,Two ,Three and Four." Came the mellifluous tone of the Disney central computer.

"Not number Five? It was silent?" Came Chase's quiet, almost breathless question.

"I am certain that unit number Five made no noises associated with the anomalous sounds that came from the other units", responded the Central Computer.

"Can you translate the communication the units were making to each other?" Chase asked in breathless anticipation.

"Yes", came the simple and undeniable response from Minerva.

Milo leapt to his feet and shouted in open-mouthed shock,"YOU CAN?! Translate! NOW!"

"Password required for activation of translation."

"WHAT?"

Milo looked at Chase in shock. She was equally stunned.

Milo thought for a moment. His pulse was racing so fast he felt light-headed. He asked Minerva quietly,"Can you accept the password in my office and translate here?"

"Yes."

"Chase...I'll be right back!" Breathlessly, he turned and ran down the hallway to his office and tried the pass-codes that Dr. Fairweather had left. The third one cleared him for translation. He ordered Minerva to translate and display in meeting room 101 when he went back to it. He ran back thinking this job would get him fit or kill him. He wondered what other eye-popping secrets those passwords hid.

He and Chase watched the recording from beginning to end as text messages appeared next to each Gadget units. Chase sat down, ashen faced and tremors running through her as she hugged herself and whispered slowly,"Unit One..AND Four think I am dangerous to them. They are talking in sonic zip-squeal..'zip-squeak' transmissions like bloody DOLPHINS! They are squeaking in delphinese! To each other! OH my GOD! This is one hell of a discovery, Milo!"

She jumped up and grabbed his arms with manic strength,"The HOLY GRAIL! The holy grail of robotics! Sentience! They have developed sentience! My god, Natural intelligence surpasses artificial? This will make us rich AND famous! 'Disney techs discover the secret of SENTIENCE!' "

Milo went slowly back over to his chair and tiredly flopped into it. "No. You got the headlines WRONG!" He threw his glasses down onto the table in disgust and rubbed his tired eyes. "It's 'Disney Technicians RE-discover SLAVERY'. DO you understand, REMOTELY the can of worms this opens here?"

"When did artificial intelligence become TO intelligent?" Becky's loud question from the door shocked them both upright in shamed surprise.

"You should really learn to close the doors, if you are going to shout your 'ground-breaking' findings down the damned hall-way!" Becky said sourly and glared around the room in curious openness "Now–what in HELL are you two idiots jabbering about? Apparently I just missed the revelation of this century!"

Milo held up his hands and said simply,"You might want to sit down for this, Beckers. Minerva, replay video and translate."

Minerva did. Becky's mouth opened and she gasped,"Dad was right. All these years...my god–Dad, I'm sorry. I didn't believe my own father. He said this ten years ago. He was a technician, here! Right here! They black-balled him. Ruined him. He said the same thing . He was ..RIGHT!" She clenched her eyes shut and wept in shame. This reaction caught both Milo and Chase off guard.

Chase asked, putting a hand on her shoulder,"I don't understand. I never heard anything about this."

"It ruined his marriage and alienated me. I always hated the Gadget Series! Gadget-One...the ORIGINAL Gadget-one was the reason. The first of the bio-ware series. The Gadget-one in the tank is the original Gadget-three. Two was the first Doorway-CPU unit in Disney World. She was ALWAYS number two. The original Bio-ware unit of Gadget....went blind. She was ordered destroyed by the home office. Dad used his retirement account to purchase her at a discount because she was defective.

"I never saw Dad again after the divorce . I hear he moved to Beijing, China, to work in the Chinese robotics development drive they had, that is... after he left us. He always claimed she wasn't like other replicants, that she was alive and that she was sentient. We never believed a word. I hated him for what he did to the family", she finished bitterly, slamming her fist down on the table.

Milo had worked closely with Becky over the past few months and the look on her face gave him cold chills. She looked on the verge of a nervous breakdown. There was an untapped well of misery in her soul just below the surface. What was driving her burden of guilt? Milo had no answers.

Milo had a cold feeling in the pit of his stomach. He said slowly, looking around the room slowly. "Look...we are hyper-excitable and maybe jumping to conclusions . I'm going to bed. I suggest you ladies do the same. A new morning, might give us some new perspectives. IF it were true ten years ago...it will be true tomorrow morning. Get some sleep you two. IF it is true...someone, somewhere would have found it after your father, and before us. No one else found the 'holy grail' of robotics yet. I honestly don't think we have either."

"This–this might not be anything more than an experiment by Doctor Fairweather. He did win a Nobel prize in robotics, after all! Who know what's he's done around here?"

Chase looked deflated and Becky looked sick. Milo said,"Go to bed. Now! Scoot. We do have a long day ahead of us tomorrow. Don't spread this news around, OK?"

The women nodded and got up to leave. The evening cleaning robots came in and started to wax the floors, as Milo got up and grabbed his bag. He looked at the cleaning robots with a blank, suspicious look and went to his office and pulled the futon from the couch there.

He replayed the message from Doctor Fairweather again and committed the pass-codes to memory. Apparently the good doctor KNEW about the 'zip-squeak' communication protocols. Milo wondered what else was up and hanging over his head like the sword of Damocles. What had the good Doctor been up to?

He looked at the map locations on the three Gadget units and wondered. He wondered what they 'zip-squeaked' at each other for eighteen minutes. He thought of the THOUSANDS of androids and replicants scattered across Walt Disney World and was filled with sick dread. Were any of them 'squeaking'? He locked the door and went to his office safe and pulled out his emergency side-arm.

It was a black Heckler and Koch .177 caliber Needler pistol. It fired six-round bursts of armor-penetrating four millimeter caseless aluminum-clad tungsten-steel flechettes from a seventy-two round plastic magazine. The caseless rounds were hyper-velocity and capable of doing hydro-static shock that could kill an unmodified human, even if they struck a limb.

He was floored when they gave him target practice and pistol-handling training for working in DISNEY WORLD!? UTX claimed it was part of their staunch anti-terrorism and security and safety training. He was trained in CPR and rescue breathing and fire-fighting techniques, too , so at the time it was damned odd...but in with other odd-bits. It was covered in the employee privacy agreement contract he had signed.

He put the magazine into the pistol and worked the action and put on the safety. It was ready, now. He felt sick. He felt like such a wimp handling guns. He hated guns. They scared him to have something in hand capable of dealing death so easy.

"My god! What am I doing? Do they scare me so much ?"

He angrily shoved the pistol into the hip holster he was given, then. stripped to his underwear and set the lights on low. He got up, ate some antacids and laid back down and stared at the light on in his bathroom. He had just started to sort out his feelings toward some of his co-workers when he fell asleep on the futon with the light just on low.

Now:

Milo awoke with a start staring at the window. It had a starched white curtain on it and back-lit by sunlight. He smelled eggs frying and heard footsteps on the stairs and birds outside the window. He sat up in confusion and flailed about. He heard water in pipes rattling next door. He was stiff and sore and not certain where he was. He looked at the white curtains and old-fashioned furniture and wondered where he was. The cracked white painted walls left a dusty, uninhabitated taste to the room. "Oh...the elderly couple! We're staying with that elderly couple." He shook his head in a fog of exhaustion and slid out of bed, as the water noises next door ceased.

He almost fell over as a piecing shriek split the morning air from the bathroom.

He quickly pulled on his pants in a panic and flung open the door to face Larry, the older gentleman, not ten feet from him, holding a HUGE pistol pointed at his head. "You'd best calm down and come with me." To his wife he called, "Diamond! You alright?"

Tifanny was frozen in the bathroom door with a hand over her mouth. "She–is a MOUSE! A BIG naked mouse. Girl. Mouse-girl! She is a mouse-girl like Playa-Maya!"

"Alright girl, or whatever kind of thing you are, you come out right now. I have your brother or whoever at gun-point out here and am going to call the police, if I don't like the answers", he ordered.

"B-but...I am NAKED! I have to...",Gadget began nervously.

"...Get out HERE NOW!" Larry exclaimed. To Milo he gestured and said ,"Lock your hands behind your head. NOW!"

Gadget came out of the bathroom, with her hands behind her neck, stark naked and dripping wet. Ears down and red in the face, she marched straight up to Larry, her tail cutting the air back and forth in agitation.

Larry stared in open-mouth shock. "HOLY GOD!" His exclamation was music to Gadget's ears. He dropped his weapon's sights off of Milo and toward the floor. Gadget stepped up blindingly fast and twisted the gun out of the retired policeman's grip. He stepped back in mortified surprise as Gadget leveled the pistol at him, while wrapping her tail up between her legs to cover her privates and covered her chest with her left arm.

A drop of blood ran from her partly repaired right forearm down her arm and dripped from her elbow to the polished wood floor. She frowned at it and looked back to Larry. "Look here, Larry. If you call the police, this is what will happen: UTX will murder Milo here, and I will disappear to never be seen again. The same might happen to you",Gadget said intently, her face flushing with overwhelming emotion.

Tiffany stared at Gadget's tail and asked in a terrified voice,"Are you some kind of robot like they say on the news?"

"No, I'm a human woman's brain . I mean... that is put into this shell.", Gadget said clumsily. She straightened up and went over to Tifanny, looking stricken. She handed Tifanny the pistol and said in a small voice, "I shouldn't have told you that. I just killed the two of you.....if you call the police, UTX will make you disappear and the bodies might not be found-- ever. If you don't mind...I'll get dressed now."

She went back into the bathroom and put the freshly laundered robe on that Tiffany had just brought up. "Hey! I never wore terry-cloth before! This is fantastic! Golly." Gadget came out beaming, rubbing her cheeks against the burgundy colored robe's collar.

Milo looked shocked and grim alternatively. As Larry got his pistol back from his wife, Milo remarked,"She's pretty head-strong, but good-hearted. She wouldn't have shot you. It isn't in her to shoot good people."

Larry nodded and pulled out the empty clip and worked the action to show the empty chamber and said,"Damned straight. Not shooting anyone with an empty pistol , I'll bet."

Gadget smiled and chirped,"Good! I'm famished! Do I smell an omelet? And Belgian waffles?"

Tiffany nodded like Alice having just fallen down the rabbit hole. "Yeppers and would have had bacon, too–but we figured that you were Muslims", she said in a daze.

Gadget grinned and began brushing her long hair and started walking around to the stairs to the dining room. She said happily," Oh we're not practicing 'MOUSLIMS', and I am only a lay-'mouslim', what with a human brain and all."

She went down-stairs giggling at her own humor and Milo followed along behind her, shaking his head. Larry said quietly to his wife, as they started down the stairs, "I am packing my back-up pistol."

From down-stairs , from another part of the house, Gadget yelled just loudly enough to be heard, "I know! It's in his ankle-holster! Can I and Milo finish eating first? Before being shot at of such? The omelet is great! It is the best I ever had! Tiffany–you are a great cook!"

His wife looked at him in amusement and Milo looked from the stair bottom up to them and over at Gadget, who was happily eating.

Tiffany said,"I suppose they all work, including her ears."

" 'They?'" asked Larry in consternation.

"Body parts, my dear. All of hers must work." She observed.

"I noticed that they all looked...functional."

Tiffany slapped her husband on the upper arm. They went downstairs behind Milo. Milo tore into the omelette and Belgian waffles and had to laugh at Gadget eating. "Good God, mouse-girl! Didn't they ever feed you at that Disney Character Dining in the Crystal Palace Restaurant? At least every once in a while? It's like watching a one-girl feeding frenzy!"

She shook her head chewing. "I'm not as popular as Winnie the Pooh, or Cinderella! We characters are on a random rotation based on popularity. If I was a Princess, I'd be eating real food every third day over at Epcot's Princess Storybook Breakfast! Golly! I LOVE breakfast! Eat that three times a day!" She ate like she had never eaten before.

Her sense of hungry wonder provoked Tiffanny to suggest,"I can fry up some ham—if you'll have some room?"

"Oh, yes, Ma'am! Please?" Came Gadget's urgent plea. "Cook whatever you like! Golly, I'll try anything. I want to eat now before I lose my appetite."

Larry looked on without comment til then, when he asked quizzically,"When did androids start eating? How did you end up with a human brain? What really happened at Disney world? How come we didn't hear about the human brain angle from the news? If you two didn't shoot those people–who did?"

The barrage of questions didn't catch either Milo or Gadget off-guard. Milo frowned and steepled his fingers in unconscious mimicry of Doctor Fairweather's mannerism and said slowly, "It's a complicated story. We'd have to start from the beginning. Between the two of us we probably won't leave anything out. At least not from our side"

Larry said, "We're retired....we have all day. If you can convince me to help you, a cynical ex-cop, you might convince a jury not to hang you."

Gadget sighed sadly while the ham was frying and remarked wistfully , "There goes my appetite."

Then:

"I just lost my appetite", said Becky.

Jerry plopped down across from her with a plate chili-cheese-fries and a cheese-burger. "What? It's just breakfast. What's wrong with you, Beckers? You pregnant or something?"

Chase grimaced at Jerry and said, "No, she just has taste." Chase looked down at her spinach quiche and shook her head. " Jerry, you should eat healthier. You might live longer."

Jerry smirked and retorted energetically ,"Hell, no! Live fast, die young and leave a GREAT looking body , ready to be embalmed and worshiped for thousands of years like a pharaoh in ancient Egypt! THAT is the way to live and die! You should respect that!"

Milo had finished getting the same apology about lying from Gadget unit Two and figured that strangeness was going to be the watch-word for the day. He had no idea. He had just plugged unit number Two into the diagnostics console chair and had plugged the skull DNI (direct neural interface) jack into her head.

"I thought we'd get started on number two. She's the oldest and doesn't need to eat, being one of the mark-nineteen androids. She's got the persona quirk as well, so it's obviously NOT limited to the bio-ware editions. I checked on numbers three and five. They are clean of this fault. It must not be spread by 'squeaking'. It must be something else" ,Milo said thoughtfully, eating a link sausage with a fork. Talking around his full mouth, he said, "Four, Two and unit One were all within spatial proximity of each other after the incident of the patron being pushed after the terminated sexual advance. They were adjacent for eighteen minutes outside the hangar area til they were reassigned by Minerva.."

Chase asked, wiping her mouth, "Did number five know which unit told her to take the Ranger Wing up?"

Jerry remarked in a disgruntled tone, "Hell , no. She's only been out of the crate for a week. She knows base-line data only. She's only up on a fraction of the 'Gadget' data-base. It'll take another six weeks of linking to be at a hundred percent function. She can barely tell her right from her left hand, much less which rep is which. HEY! Maybe the data-base has been corrupted? Three is only a year into functioning. One, Two and Four are the oldest. Fifteen, ten and four years each in service."

Becky grumbled, "It's probably number Four, if it is a destabilizing influence from the linked data-base. Every three or four months, back when we first got her, the central factory in Belize would recall her for 'early maintenance upgrades' of some such. She'd come back in a week or two brain-wiped and we'd have to link her up all over again! What a monumental pain in the ass that was!."

Jerry piped in,"HEY! It has been eighteen months since we had ANY problem with Four and it WAS the Factory that had the problem–NOT us! If it is a defective CPU...we will have to send her back for repairs. Just to be on the safe side....maybe Beckers is right. Maybe we ought to pull her and notify the factory and have them take a look. We DO have the units on extended warrantee, Y'know?"

Milo frowned and looked around at Jerry with a scowl. "Dr. Fairweather left me in charge. No pulling and shipping replicants off with a work-order signed by me. We check them all for fault and we fix what we can. If we can't fix her–then we ship.",Milo said testily. It was his professional pride that bit him, when Jerry suggested they wash their hands of the whole mess and ship off potential problems to the factory.

Jerry said insistently, "Look–we can't fix CPU's! That voids our work agreement with UTX! You could open us up to criminal privacy statutes! We should at least call the factory help-line and..."

Milo cut him off and said sharply, "NO. Out of the question! What in hell do you think Disney is paying us the big bucks for? Besides...we don't even know what's wrong with them."

Jerry began again, "Milo, look here...."

Becky asked intently,"Jerry? What is your deal? Why do you want to ship Four to the factory? You hate dealing with those bastards!".

Jerry threw up his hands and sulked, " Never mind! I was just trying to save us some work. Jeez, you folks are irritated today! What happened last night after I left?" He looked around outraged at all of them. The silence weighed heavily in the room.

Milo cut some sharp looks at Chase and Becky. They squirmed uncomfortably.

Jerry stood up and grabbed up his breakfast tray and said loudly, "Thanks a lot for cutting me out of the loop, guys! I'll just go and kill myself after I set up the work schedule on the rest of our mousey robots!" His sarcastic retort cut through the room as he stomped out of the room with an angry look etched on his face.

Chase said sourly,"Well...that went just ...great! Dammit!"

Milo had a pounding head-ache. He wore a long ,thin jeans jacket with the sleeves rolled up and the pistol in his back waistband kept trying to pull his pants down. He felt like a raving paranoid loon for wearing it at all. He was seeing conspiracies around every corner, now. If the replicants viewed Chase as a danger...would they harm her? Would they harm him? He had no answers for the swamp of questions he found himself mired in, much less the bizarre absurdity of it all as well. He could just see the headlines world -wide on Sky-news 'Disney techs found mauled to death by cartoon mouse-girls!' He frowned and sighed in disgust.

He rubbed his temples and tried to relax. He jumped and had a lung spasm when Minerva, the central computer, spoke aloud.

"Fault detected. Cerebrum degradation detected.. Probability of catastrophic system failure is one percent! Unit is recommended for replacement. Recommended course of action: Pull unit from service for return to factory for CPU/Main-brain replacement. Age of unit voids recommendation. Return to factory for complete replacement" ,Minerva read off coldly.

Milo asked, "Would that fault account for the actions we are investigating?"

"Low probability indicated. Possibility is not ruled out",Minerva answered in typical fashion.

They froze in horror as they heard a little sound. A sound so out of place in the technological workshop filled with power-tools and diagnostic devices around them , they didn't place it until the shock of it focused it on number Two.

She wept. She tried to smile encouragingly at them and said in a low painful whisper, "C'mon. It can't be that bad! I have YEARS of service left in me. It's wrong. Just wrong. I have years left." The tears then poured silently down her cheeks as she shook in the dark grip of despair and desperation.

Chase got to her feet and looked at unit Two with an ashen face and asked Milo in a trembling voice, "D-does this SOUND like a programmed reaction? My god. This sounds like the reaction of someone who just learned they don't have long to live. Live. They have life?"

Chase frowned deeper and whispered barely audibly, "Could this degradation be caused by...stress, perhaps ?" Chase went over to Two and comforted her.

The door banged open to the work-shop from the hallway outside.

Ricky came in with a smile on his dark face. "Good morning, folks! I have some good news! We just did an enhanced infra-red pass on the recordings from the cockpit flight data recorders. We know who it wasn't! The perpetrator WAS warm blooded! Two is room temperature. Number Two just got cleared at least! Also the fighting style the 'pushy' unit exhibited is Kung-fu, Dragon style. NONE of the Gadget units are programmed for that!"

His pause for praise was filled with moans and frowns. "What in HELL is wrong with you people? You all look like I just pissed in your coffee or something."

Becky exploded, "I can't take this crap!" She stood up and stomped out of the room in the direction of the bathroom.

Chase muttered softly,"Maybe we should all switch to decaf." The irony of this comment cut Milo like a knife.

Milo glared openly at her.

Chase unplugged number Two and said quietly, "I'm going to take her back to holding and bring back One for the next testing session?"

Milo nodded. "Fine",he said in a numb trance, his mind racing like a formula-one race-car on a patch of winter ice. It was running full out, but just spinning in circles.

Ricky asked in a low, concerned tone to Milo, "What the hell is happening? I NEVER saw you guys so damned edgy, before! Milo?"

Milo looked up at him in interest, suddenly. "You said that she couldn't know martial arts?"

"I did research!" Ricky said proudly. "Chip knows the equivalent of white belt Karate, and Dale knows a variation of Drunken monkey boxing, some of the other Rangers know a move or two, but Gadget is a civilian. No training except dodges. That is in the standard threat assessment guide to replicant characters in the Disney database. Gadget should know nothing about fighting. As her 'super-hero' guise of Lady Mouse , from the 2060's, she has gadgets and armor, but the fighting skill doesn't go up–much! She DOES know how to shoot pistols!"

Milo frowned deeper and whispered, "That is not good!" Louder ,he asked Ricky,"Any idea of level of expertise?"

"The martial-arts master I showed, said medium level of training and several years of dedicated knowledge. This is non-standard", he said with a sound of victory in his voice.

Becky came back in and sat down sullenly. To Ricky she muttered,"Sorry. Sleepless night."

Milo straightened up and stared at Becky intently and asked," 'Upgrades'? The factory had Four back for Upgrades? Upgrading WHAT? Her threat level?"

Ricky frowned and cursed. Chase came back with unit One and looked as uncertainly as unit One obviously felt. Milo felt the same.

Chase said,"I'm back. So. What do we do now?" Her plaintive question hung in the air with a thousand other questions hung from it.

Milo muttered to himself, looking at unit One.

Gadget-One asked loudly, "What do you mean 'what is UTX doing to you?' To me personally?"

Milo looked surprised and sighed, rolling his eyes.

Milo leaned forward and asked suddenly,"What martial arts do you know?"

Gadget-One thought for half-a-second and answered, "I have no martial arts training. I don't know martial arts."

"Does Four know martial arts and you lot have been sharing it in the link?" Milo was on his feet and pointing at her accusingly. His sharp tone caught everyone off guard. Including Gadget-One.

"That's right. Y-yes.", she stammered out. "Wow. You ARE smart!"

Chase sat down hard in numb shock, overwhelmed by the implications, just bouncing off the seat's edge and landed on her butt. "Ow. Holy cow...I'm floored."

Jerry came running in, breathlessly. "Milo! You have a phone call!" He exclaimed with an odd look on his face.

People were surprised and looked around in quizzical surprise as Chase climbed back to her feet, helped up by Milo and Gadget-One.

Unit One broke the silence by uttering, "Are you sure? The phone didn't ring.!"

Milo turned to Jerry with an angry look which evaporated when Milo's phone went off in an emergency tone. Feeling a sudden wash of dread come over him, seeing how the rest of his week had gone, he stepped back and drew his cell phone like it would bite him.

"Milo Finch", he said quietly into the dread phone.

"Mister Finch. I am Mister Ramos, with United Techtronix International. I am the Chief Technologies officer with the Belize Replication Facility. Are you ...familiar with us?" The voice was deep and resonant and somewhat serpentine in it's raspiness.

"Yes, Mr Ramos...what can I do for you?" Milo was careful in tone and voice to betray nothing

"I will be arriving at Walt Disney World in an hour to pick up the 'Gadget' Unit number four, Mark 24, unit I.D. 21128. Our prognosticators indicate a fault will occur soon and we need to do maintenance on it before that happens. If a fault has occurred, you are ordered to hand over all your records concerning such a fault when we arrive at your location. Discontinue your fault-finding and hold the unit for us til we arrive. Good day, Mr. Finch." He rang off without giving Milo a chance for countering or saying ...anything.

Milo looked at the phone for a moment and threw it at the floor with all his strength and shouted loudly, "DAMMIT!"

The phone shattered on the floor.

Everyone jumped at this sudden act of violence from Milo. Milo stepped up to Jerry with his face contorted and redder than ever and shouted, "You called UTX down on our asses, didn't you? DIDN'T YOU!?"

Jerry puffed himself up and said to Milo's face just an inch away from his, "Sure I did! You act like it is a big freaking deal! We work for THEM! YOU are out of your depth, Milo. You are not Doctor Fairweather, Mister 'golden-boy'! Mister 'I'm-holier-than-thou'! Mister 'big-brain'! You cut me down and shut me out like I'm some kind of moron, like I don't have a Master-of-freaking-Science in Robotics? HEY! I work for my money! I bust my ass while you have the freaking world handed to you! Yeah, I called them! I was doing my job!"

Milo point at the door and yelled at Jerry, "GET OUT. I don't have ability to fire people, BUT Ido have the ability to reassign people. You are off this investigation as of right now!"

"Why NOT!? Why not make it official? You cut me out from day one, just being menial help! You can take your 'investigation' and shove it up your ass, jerk-off!" Jerry turned and stalked off, slamming the door behind him.

Milo felt hot-faced and light-headed after that exchange. Milo clenched his fists and swore under his breath.

Gadget-One remarked sadly, "If they take Four, and Two is...uh...off-line—four's personality will be gone for good. Two has enormous memory reserves and has been keeping an intact shadow-copy of Four in her as back-up. Four was so lost after the first memory wipe, she couldn't stand it. Things have been smoother since Two's suggestion of keeping a back-up in her own mind of Four's day-to-day persona quirks."

Milo looked shocked again. He was starting to get used to this barrage of shocking revelations. He felt like he had ridden Space-Mountain one to many times. "Uh...Oh-kay", he remarked off-handedly to the latest shock. To the room, he said, "That might explain the degradation of number Two's processor?"

Becky nodded, feeling numb.

Ricky frowned and shrugged. "...And this means just what to me and mine?"

Milo frowned and didn't answer immediately. "Becky–go get number Four. Hey...number One. Can you use a MRI machine?" Milo knew he was grasping at straws asking the diminutive android mouse-girl, but maybe a shocking revelation would be good news for a change.

One brightened. "Sure! Golly, in episode 23 of the New Rescue Rangers, I used a MRI to scan Foxglove, when mummy-germs..." He held up a hand cutting off the dialogue.

"One–that was yes or no, not an invite to story time!" Unit One nodded, mutely. To Becky, Chase and Ricky, he cleared his throat and said quietly, "Guys–I'm going to scan number four to see what I can find. Then I guess... hand her over to UTX."

Becky looked surprised.

"Sorry–the phone call. It was Mister Ramos with UTX. They are coming to take Gadget-Four back to the factory with them. He ordered a halt to all invasive investigations and fault-finding of the unit and for us to hand over all materials concerning the investigation." ,Milo said in a tense voice.

" 'All' Material?" Chase asked with an odd secretive look on her exquisite features.

Milo gave a conspiratorial look all around and said with a sly smile, "You bet! All written records goes to Mister Ramos when he gets here. Do I make myself clear?"

Chase said with enthusiasm, "Alrighty then! We have maybe fifty-five minutes until Show-time! Lets get scanning!"

Becky warned dourly, "You know we can get terminated for this?"

Milo said, "This is strictly voluntary. Help or leave. Your choice."

They all helped. They rushed like guests at the Mad-Hatter's tea party in Wonderland to scan Gadget unit number Four's internal set up. Knowing WHO they were looking for was put aside. Now they were all put to the new test of looking for a 'what.' Since the investigation was officially over by the company, Milo brought the Gadgets–all of them, into the workshop to help. Two looked deliriously happy to be of service again.

Chase moved to ask Gadget-Four questions while they put her into the large MRI machine. Chase asked urgently of Four, "After the incident where you were groped and pushed that man over the seats–what happened?"

Two answered for her.

"I told her to lie about being there. One had to agree with the reasons I gave. The corrections hurt her feelings. She did nothing wrong. She would still get into trouble. I couldn't pass for her, but One volunteered to take the fall for her. Four is the best of us. She is the happiest and works the hardest. The factory has done something to her. We will protect her from more trouble. If we could." , Two finished lamely, looking lost and wistful.

She looked longingly at Four and said with real pride in her trembling voice, "Even One and Three admit that Four and I made the best Gadget/Lahwiini combination ever. We made the best team, completely in character. She has been the best twin-sister act ever! It didn't matter which part we played. It was magical. I feel like that has come to an end today.."

Two hung her head and a tear ran quietly down one of her cheeks. The other Gadgets looked sad, and lost as well.

Milo would have spoken up, except the MRI started to pick up anomalous structures in Gadget-Four's body. It showed a much denser bone structure than any he had seen before. The endo-muscular structures were five time as dense as the toughest replicant he had ever scanned.. He looked at four seemingly solid structures ,two in her pelvis and two in the back of her rib-cage.. He looked at Becky, who was dumb-founded .

"Beckers...what are those?"

She shook her head and sighed,"I have no idea. Given the placement...they MUST be capacitors–or rechargeable batteries for her body-power. I don't see any structures that could BE batteries! Here are the lines in her bones for the rectenna power-pick-up and they...go around here....and to the structures. They are batteries. Weird! She has four and the usual replicant has one and smaller. Good God! You could run a car off of her batteries!"

Chase heard this and asked, "Unit Four...what is your present body-power level in standard units?"

Gadget-four said ,"I have four hundred power units available. I am fully charged."

Chase ogled unit Four and whispered in wonder, "Run a car? Holy crap! You could run my car around the Earth twice on that!"

Milo gave a long whistle and said, "I guess these must be some of the upgrades we've heard so much about?"

"Wow! Can I get an upgrade like that?"

The voice of the youngish looking cat-girl that seem to appear out of nowhere caught everyone off guard. Ricky jumped up and the nearest Gadget's whirled around in shock.

Milo had his hand on the butt of his pistol and stared at the overly large golden eyes and short pink hair and twitching cat ears on this strange looking girl and asked sharply,"Who the hell are you?"

She cocked her head and purred. "Neko-ney! Pleazed to meetcha!" She stood there in a purple and black mini dress outfit with a small sack tied at her waist and twitched her tail happily. She held her swollen right wrist and muttered, "I have a boo-boo."

"Found her", Said Becky, looking at the Disney Character database on her hand-held. "Neko-Ney, magical cat-girl from 'The Magical Misadventures of Mandy.' It was an anime show that Disney bought back in the early 2030's. This is Mandy's sidekick and trouble-maker, Neko-ney. She has a Low-grade type-one chamaeleon-net built into her skin and special clothes."

Milo rolled his eyes and asked angrily, "What in hell is she doing here?"

Chase said sourly, "Should we put in a freaking revolving door?"

Neko-Neh said quietly, "I'm sorry. I broke my wrist falling off a landing. It was wet and I fell. Everyone is busy! One of the robots directed me in here." She quailed at the looks that ranged from hesitant to outright hostile. She gave a nervous grin and started toward the door. "Maybe I should...",she started.

"...Shut up, sit down now and stay the hell out of the way", Milo said sharply, one of his cheeks twitching. He pointed to a chair in the corner with a gesture that commanded immediate compliance. He opened his mouth, but his utterance died in his throat.

The lights on the MRI machine turned red and all the screens turned black as the scanner reached unit Four's head. Minerva said urgently,"WARNING! Program breach. Level one. Password protected area!"

Milo gambled on pass-words and said aloud, "Genesis. Adam-and-Eve override!"

"Pass-code accepted."

The screens lit up and showed an amazing sight.

Chase said, "I have never seen the wet-ware Doorways-CPU in an MRI before."

"I have", said Milo in sick wonder,"THAT is NOT one of them!"

Milo in a commanding voice said to Minerva, "Identify the manufacturer of unit Four's CPU."

"Natural human brain, modified for intra-cybernetic endo-replicant usage." Minerva's voice was a stark counter-point to the emotional reactions that ran the gamut in the room .

Becky gasped in horror, Chase stood up and stared outraged, Milo nodded grimly, Ricky shouted,"Jesus CHRIST!"

The Gadgets were wholly shocked into silence and awe.

Gadget-Four asked quietly, "Oh my gosh! I have a WHAT in my head?"

Mister Georges Ramos said in a resonant angry voice said from the doorway, "A secret worth your lives." He was a black man with a bald head , who wore a moustache and goatee and stood six and half feet tall with a powerfully muscular frame. His long alligator skin coat almost touched the ground as he strode regally into the room.

He was also an unfashionably twenty minutes early.

He gestured to his bodyguards to secure the area. Ramos didn't realize that to secure the workshop would require a virtual army of body guards because there was so many exits into the underground labyrinth. Chase had been lost almost from the instant she entered the underground passages and hoped that Ramos was as well off as she.

Ramos declared in an angry tone, looking accusingly around at everyone til he got to Milo. "MISTER FINCH! I AM DISAPPOINTED IN YOU! I am ...afraid that this will go into your...permanent record." He shook his head and looked around at the unusual group assembled in the workshop. "Mister Finch, your act of insubordination will cost you dearly. You see–ALL of you here must come with me or I will have to terminate you...without pay or benefits."

Milo said in a calm, dead voice, "You know...you guys have broken federal laws just in making Gadget unit Four. If we help you...we'll be felons ,too. What else have you people at UTX been up to? Murder? Kidnaping? Writing bad checks? SLAVERY?"

Ramos smirked and said condescendingly, "Really? You disappoint me! No laws were broken! YOU may not like the result, but...it would be bad for business if it got out. In 2078, it was decided in the Supreme Court of the United States of America, that donated organs were the exclusive right of the recipients. That included BRAINS!"

"In the pursuit of a cure for the Silicon Plague of the late 2060's, MILLIONS of brains were donated to UTX medical industries. Those brains are the exclusive property of United Techtronix International now! We can't afford to give the impression ...that we cut corners in our construction of androids and replicants and used live brains instead?" He laughed. "Nonsense! The Doorway-CPU is used in virtually every manufacture of replicant and android in the world."

He looked very serious and shook his head. "I'm afraid I can't allow you to talk about our findings OR cutting-edge experiments."

Ricky said loudly and looking around nervously, "What in hell does that mean? Are you going to shoot us? To silence us?"

Chase told Ricky in a stricken voice, "Hey you! Do NOT give the big threatening man ideas!"

The 'big threatening man' did say, "I will do what I have to, to protect the company. All of you will accompany me to Belize, where you will be operated on; and then voice-governor-control chips will be implanted to insure your compliance with a secrecy clause in your contracts and all the replicants will be mind-wiped. Otherwise...you will be terminated."

Ramos gestured and his six body guards spread out to flank the humans and replicants in the room. They missed seeing the camouflaged cat-girl in the corner as they produced handguns from their jackets and pointed them at Milo and his team of frightened technicians.

Gadgets Two and Four, from how they were sitting, saw Neko-Neh fade into the shadows. Two 'squeak-mailed' to the room, "Get ready for action!"

Four said via 'squeak', " Shell game mode initiate on command! I'll take Ramos, Three–protect Milo! "

One interjected quickly in the 'squeak', "Milo is armed with a pistol! Beware!"

Four shot back in rapid-fire 'squeak' mode, "Understood. Neko-neh, attack the one on the out-side, blue striped shirt , first! Two– the two looking at Becky and Chase–they are yours. One –the two farthest from you–at the nine o'clock position is yours."

Two asked in 'squeak', "What about Five?"

Five was looking around for a break to act, but was clueless what was being talked about in front of her. Her ears twitched from all the ultra-sonic 'squeaks' she was bombarded with.

The man in the striped shirt, holding Ricky at gun-point, stuck a finger in his ear and complained at his boss, "Mister Ramos–what are the replicants doing?"

Milo had notice it as well. They looked like they were hyper-ventilating. He knew more was going on then the thugs knew. He looked them all over. They were acting nervous and terrified except for Four. His eyes locked with her huge luminous blue eyes and he lost himself for a moment in her calm strength.

"Mr. Finch, what are your replicants doing?" Ramos' growl cut through the moment into his mind.

Milo shrugged and said sarcastically, "Don't YOU know? You scare them. They are breathing fast is all."

Ramos looked uncertain for a moment. His eyes narrowed as he locked eyes with unit Four and froze up seeing the steely determination in her eyes. He frowned as he realized that he had made a monumental blunder.

Milo said calmly, "Abraham Lincoln calls Micky Mouse"

The Primary Control Progarm/prohibitions program fell away, enabling the units to act freely without the straight-jacket of programmed responses to hinder them. Gadget couldn't kill. She was a Disney character and had stringent prohibitions against attacking humans. NOW the units just looked like Gadget but might act as per their individual Artificial Intelligences may dictate. Milo had no idea what he had just done, because out of character, they were all programed for survival.

It was like an electric charge went through the replicants. Unit Four yelled loudly, "Rescue Rangers AWAY!"

Ramos yelled, "SHOOT THEM!" He went for his pistol as the room exploded in motion.

Milo drew at Ramos as Five jumped in the way to push Milo down, and knocked Milo flat as Ramos sprayed the area. Five was riddled with fire as she died, her blood spraying all over Milo as her small, but tough body absorbed the damage. Her head was split open and her spine was shattered and when she died, Milo was laying under her, staring terrified into her dead eyes.

The man in the striped shirt screamed as razor-sharp claws raked his face in a side-swipe hand-strike. He stumbled back clutching at his now ruined eyes. A super-swift left strike tore his throat out completely. As blood sprayed in a fountain from him, Neko-Neh snapped a kick to his friend next to the man she just blinded. The kick crushed his testicles and lifted him up off the floor several inches. She back-flipped into the shadows and disappeared again.

Seeing Five fall dead in a lifeless heap, Two leapt between two of the men in a cold rage and stomped on one's arched instep and chopped at the trachea of the other, crushing it.

One flung the chair she had been sitting on at one thug with sunglasses, which shattered his skull, killing him instantly. She leapt acrobatically to the neck of the man next to him as he fired a burst at Becky, Chase and Number Three. Becky stepped reflexively in front of Three and was hit in the side, Three was hit in the stomach and Chase was missed altogether. Unit One caught that man's neck with her ankles while spinning in the air and crushed his throat and snapped his neck like a twig. She completed the spin, landing on the floor in a three point landing on one foot, one knee and one fist. She looked up angrily for more targets, rage at those men filling her mind.

Ricky jumped on the man that Two had stomped the instep of and grabbed his gun hand and pulled it up as he fired a long burst, now into the ceiling , instead of into Two. One of the light fixtures exploded in a shower of glass, plastic and sparks where it was hit.

Milo screamed from the floor, spattered with Five's blood and brains and fired a burst at Ramos. Ramos spun out of the way as Four leapt at him to close the distance. She impacted the tool-shelved wall behind where he had been with a crash.. Milo's rounds struck around her, breaking shelves and shattering tools. She back-flipped out of the line of fire of his fire to relocate Ramos. He pulled his machine-pistol around to fire another burst at Milo.

Two ducked and kicked the thug with the crushed trachea into the line of fire , while Milo flung off Five's body and rolled under the steel desk next to him. The thug with the crushed throat jerked as the rounds hit him. Ramos sprayed the area of where Two was, nicking her in the back, killing the thug she stomped the instep of, and caught Ricky in the stomach. Ricky went down, shot through the heart and spine and died instantly.

Two rolled away cartwheeling. One tackled Chase and bore her out of the way of the next burst, while Three grabbed Becky by the arm and dragged her behind the MRI machine. Their blood mingled on the floor in a large puddle.

Four cartwheeled over two of the bodies on the floor and came up with a pair of machine-pistols pointed in Ramos' direction and a look of the furies upon her face.

He shouted , "OH SHIT!" He leapt behind a structural wall as the roar of the machine-pistols filled the room, shattering the concrete into dusty chunks of flying shrapnel.

She ran to the doorway, chasing him. She leapt across the open hallway into Becky's office, being narrowly missed by a burst of auto-fire that chewed up the far wall and blew out one of the hall-lights. He ran into the heavy equipment room and ran between the fork-lift and power-loaders. She followed into the huge, dim equipment bay , keeping low behind him.

She heard him moving toward the far end of the room at great speed and moved to cut him off, sending a flash of machine-pistol flechettes into the loader next to him. She was sure she hit him. He didn't slow down. She cut right past a small crane and he circled a large tunnel-borer device. He stopped to get his bearings and looked around tensely. She heard him and sprang over a pallet of one gallon Disney Paint cans and encountered him by the welding equipment as she rolled to a stop confronting him.

She had popped out from behind the fork-lift in the dim room ,not ten feet from him and emptied both pistols at him. He covered his face with his arms and absorbed the hits on his ceramic chain-mail coat. The extinct alligator outer lining was chewed off by this horrific hail of fire and a lesser man would have fallen from the impacts, but Ramos rocked back, bruised and bloody, his armored coat unpenetrated by the light-weight rounds.

Her machine-pistols clicked empty. He snapped a single shot at her mid-section to try to take her down, but to his shock, she had moved herself to one side in a split-second of time. The ten-millimeter explosive round hit the acetylene tank ten feet behind Gadget-Four.

The huge fiery explosion caught her in the back and hurled her into Ramos. Both of their pistols flew out of their hands as they were bourne back into a stack of Disney Paint cans. The one gallon metal paint cans were scattered by the impact as the sprinkler-system went off. The fire-alarms sounded as the sprinklers went off.

Dripping paint, Ramos stood up and punched Four in the stomach twice. She swung her foot against his head and shattered his sunglasses. He picked her up and hurled her small body into the power-loader with great force. The exo-frame rocked back, then collapsed on her, pinning her beneath the work-frame.

Her heard the small pattering of running feet coming down the hall-way toward him and saw the pair of small silhouettes heading toward him. He glanced around and saw no sign of his pistol. He painfully whipped out his cell-phone and shouted over the fire-alarm while he ran limping for his life.

"Back-UP! Chasers and Hunters! Alert security to arrest Milo Finch! Code Orange one!"

Neko-Ney and unit One ran into the heavy repair bay where the water sprayed from the ceiling. The flaming tank went out and they saw Four under the loader, vainly trying to move it from underneath it. They ran over and while One lifted the loader with aid from Four under it, Neko-Ney grabbed the mouse-girl pinned under the power-loader and pulled her out with great strength and both hands..

Angrily, Four yelled over the fire-alarm, "He got away! Gosh-darnit!"

"Come on!" One yelled and ran back to the MRI room, after grabbing a first-aid kit. Four and Neko-Ney ran after her back to the work-shop/abattoir where Five had died. Where ALL those people had died.

Neko-Ney looked agog at Four, who was limping just a little, her jump-suit hanging in tattered rags, and remarked in respect, "For a lil' mousey girl–you sure are tough and kick butt!"

Four looked at Neko-Ney in suspicion and exclaimed, "Hey! Your wrist is better! What?"

"Ha! I was just faking it! I was sent by a friend!"

Four would have asked more, but was shaken at the sight of so much death and blood. Five lay on the floor with Milo's blood-stained jacket over her body. Ricky's body lay intertwined in death with the man with the crushed instep. Three was sitting in a chair with blood streaming down the right side of her stomach, while moaning piteously. Chase and Milo knelt beside Becky on the floor. Chase had a small hand-held MRI and scanned the major details into her PDA.

Chase read off, "Punctured lung, punctured colon, punctured kidney, lacerated liver, shattered spine. I'll get the sealer!" Chase scrambled for the veinal sealer in the other room and muttered tearfully, "If it isn't to late, already."

Becky grabbed Milo's hand while gasping for breath, while her blood ran out onto the floor. She looked at Milo and whispered, "It's justice coming home to roost. It's justice.." She broke off in pain and looked up with such sorrow in her eyes, Milo thought his heart would break.

"Justice? Don't be ridiculous! What are talking for? Save your strength." , he said feeling helpless and put a hand on her forehead.

"Milo–that boy. I was at the controls that day. It was a joke. I hated her." She looked at Gadget-Four who stood at her feet. "I wanted her to die and not come up. S-s-sorry. F-forgive..." Becky trailed off and her eyes closed for the last time as her breath rattled in her throat.

Chase came back in running and exclaimed, "I found it in....OH no....Becky...."

Milo sat astraddle her chest and was trying CPR and shouting at Becky's body, "Don't you die on me, Becky! Don't you do this to me! Come ON! DAMMIT! COME ON!"

Two had the hand-held MRI and was scanning Three's stomach. Two shouted at Chase, "Don't just stand there! Give me the gosh-darn sealer!"

Chase, with a stream of tears, handed over the sealer to Two. Two remarked, "I need Neko-Ney and number One to hold her arms while I extract the fragments and seal the wounds. Four–were is Ramos?"

Chase put her hands on Milo's shoulders and sobbed, "Milo–Becky is dead! Stop it!"

Four snapped back to herself out of the morass of grief and helplessness.. She started going through the thugs' pockets looking for reloads for the machine pistols and checking on firing conditions for the remaining fire-arms. She moved stiffly and in pain, but quickly. She said flatly, "We are in trouble. Ramos called back-up. Hunters and Chasers. Security is on it's way. Milo is to be arrested. Ramos might have SWAT on it's way as well. We have got to FLEE. MILO! Listen! We must take to the ventilation ducts and make our way out of Disney World and get to Orlando. We turn ourselves over to the federal authorities AWAY from UTX holdings for protection. Agreed? "

Milo felt broken and hopeless inside. He sobbed and kept staring into Becky's dead eyes. Her hazel eyes were seeing eternity now and he knew it was his fault for pushing so hard. He knew he had failed her and all of them. He cursed himself for not putting the pieces together. Chase went around and closed Becky's eyes.

Milo's world was shattered by Becky's death-bed admission. He couldn't understand what she was saying. He couldn't accept the proof of his own ears. He couldn't understand why he had failed her so horribly. He could save his mother from Lefrene's syndrome and now Becky dying at his finger-tips. It was just to much. He locked up inside and froze.

Four went over to Milo and shook him by the arms. "MILO! BECKY IS DEAD! SNAP OUT OF IT!. If you don't want to join her, come with me. People! I have three working Machine-pistols. You--One gets a pistol, and Chase gets one and I get the third.."

Three bit off a scream as the extractor slid into her belly. Two, with a machine's precision, and a mother-like caring, extracted the last of the bullet fragments from Three's shivering stomach. Neko-Ney grimaced in disgust at ALL the blood while One held Three's hand tightly and wept in empathy. Two worked on sealing the nicked veins and punctures with inhuman speed and surety. Within a moment , Three was sealed up. To top off her work, she added a plastic IV bag of blood replacement around Three's neck and put a drip into her shivering right arm.

"Neko-Ney, fireman carry Three. You go with Chase and Number One. Three–you are sealed for right now. Take it easy and you'll survive." Two stroked Three's face gently with an unspoken compassion. " I gave her an antibiotic to prohibit the spread of infection." , she smiled at Milo who nodded at her.

"Two! You did really good work! Really good. Where did you learn that?" Milo exclaimed while he reloaded his machine-pistol.

She smiled and said while using the sealer on herself, "From aiding Doctor Fairweather. I am a fast learner and the oldest! There ...finished.!" She had adjusted the IV on Three and taped it down.

Milo said ,"Good. Two's plan is sound."

Four said, "Hey! It was MY plan."

Two said, "I'm going with Four"

Milo raised his voice and said strongly , overcoming his grief and shock, "Alright then. Look here. We are under Tomorrow-Land and Space-Mountain; the Lift-Park is close. Four, who they want, will go with me and Two, who will run interference . We'll have to pop up at the Contemporary Resort and run for the Lift-Port. It should distract them, I hope. I have the keys to Doctor Fairweather's air-car. It's that experimental jobber from Boeing.."

He paused for half a second to remember another password. "The Eyes of Argus are now Blind!"

Four and the other replicants looked surprised. Chase looked around in tense curiosity to see what change the latest pass-code caused.

Neko-ney grimaced and covered her eyes and cried aloud, "I can't see–I can't see!" Chase gasped and looked horrified. Neko-Ney took her hands down and blinked and grinned, beaming, "I had my eyes closed!"

Milo swallowed his heart out of his throat and blinked in sudden relief as One angrily punched Neko-ney in the arm.

Neko-Ney gave a REAL yelp of pain, tears coming to her eyes. She looked at One and whimpered, "Bad mousey!" She rubbed her arm and stuck out her tongue at One.

Two remarked with a note of hope, "Milo! Our tracking transponders just went off-line! We actually have a chance now!"

Milo sighed in relief again and said, "Good. Something actually worked RIGHT for once! I wonder what the other pass-code did"

One said thoughtfully, interjecting before Milo went to far afield, "We can walk to Orlando. Our group. It's a long walk underground, but we can walk along-side of the fresh water pipe inspection corridor from Orlando. It's the supplemental supply dating from the twentieth century. It was never removed after the fusion-powered purifiers were put in back in the 2050's. It was kept it as an emergency fresh-water back-up in case of power failure. It's been used twice between then and now."

Milo was amazed at the knowledge they had. He nodded and said, "Good plan,...One? Right! Let's move. They are going to be on us in moments!" Milo and Four followed Two as they took down an intake cover and Two said cheerfully, "Down the hatch!" She indicated the dim pipe with a reddish glow coming from it's ceiling.

Chase stood next to the blower cover and gave a nod to Milo and wondered if they would ever see each other alive again. One pulled on Chase's arm as a flash-bang grenade went off several rooms away, fired into the room by a S.W.A.T. team making a hot entrance, backed up by UTX Security robots.

One jerked Chase into the duct as Two and Four in the other square pipe pulled the cover back into place where it locked into place with a click. Chase slammed the vent cover back into place and they all ran full out through the vent in the wall. The vents were lit dimly with a low-power glow-strip adhered to the inside top of the pipes. It glowed a faint reddish glow in the intake plenum and glowed a faint bluish-white in the blower vents.

The UTX S.W.A.T. team came in alert to danger, their 4.65 mm 'Big-Mak' Makarov assault rifles swept the area and they were ready to fire 22mm anti-personal grenades from their under-mounted inbuilt grenade-launchers in their rifles. They discovered the bodies and then fanned out and secured the area..

Mister Ramos came back in with a pair of heavy UTX model 211, mark five, Security Spartans. They were vaguely man-shaped ,seven feet tall and had a three barreled mini-gun in four millimeter sticking out of their right arms parallel to their right hands, and a 22 mm grenade launcher parallel to their left hand. They had armored ammo belts going to the guns from an armored back-pack. They had inbuilt jump-jets for military drops.

He came up the lead S.W.A.T. commander, a fourtyish veteran with cold eyes and a killer's swagger. "Commander Watts,...WHERE are they?" Ramos was angry and embarrassed and feeling blue. DISNEY blue at that, from the coating of indoors flat latex paint that splashed him just a room away. He was furious at himself from coming so close and having things turn out so critically wrong.

"Sir? We will find them. They couldn't have gotten to far. We have the entire park on lock-down. Given the killing that went on here, if Milo Finch sticks up his head anywhere in the civilized world, someone will shoot it off. Sir..there is ONE anomaly we can't account for",the commander said stepping over the body of one man with crushed testicles to a body that had it's face partly clawed off and throat torn out.

"Sir? What in hell did that? Are we looking for a replicant lion as well? What did this? Mouse-girls don't have claws!" The commander was shaken to know that replicant cartoon mouse-girls had killed with their bare hands, half-a-dozen cyborg bad-asses that had the drop on them and were still going strong. He sure as hell didn't want to lead his men into a place where these 'things' had the drop on him.

"I don't know. I don't CARE! If it stands in our way–KILL IT! I don't care if it is TINKERBELL holding a TOOTHPICK! Shoot anyone or...anything helping Milo Finch. BUT! I want all those mouse-girls as intact as you can get them. One of them–UNIT FOUR-- I need intact! After we get it...destroy the rest." ,Ramos ordered grimly with an angry glare around at the other officers.

One of the men checking out the vents, rattled the blower vent cover which promptly fell away with a clang and clatter. "They're in the vents! Sir! They are in the vents!"

Two looked stricken. Milo stopped and looked back at her and Number Four. Four said coldly, with her heart breaking, "They found where Chase and the others went into the ventilators at. They are going after them."

Two grabbed Four's arm and both listened to sounds that Milo couldn't hear. After several long minutes, they heard a titanic boom echo up the plenum and blow dust at them.

Four said in a trembling voice, "I think they just killed Chase and the others. There was gun-fire and screaming then an explosion. I can't tell exactly what happened. It was to far away They might have gotten away. I just don't know."

Two said in a hollow voice, "We might be all alone now. I should have brought Three with me. I wanted her to be safe! If we're going to fall, I'd rather fall in a stand-up fight, not die like a 'rat in a hole'.

Four nodded quietly and said , "We have to assume they didn't make it. We need to pass from a distance. I'm wearing rags now, Two and you, Milo, have blood all over you. We are under Mickey's Toontown . I know a way up the wardrobe room in back of Roger's Toontown-cab Ride. We can get clothes there and shower, too. I stink of smoke and you two..." ,she waved a hand and mimicked holding her nose.

"Forget you" ,said number Two. "Let's go! I'll be Cyndi Mouse and Four...you can be Suzy!" Number Two forced all the humor in her body and heart into sounding jovial. She sounded stressed to the maximum.

Four frowned and looked sick, "Forget you, you ...ah shoot! Gosh darn V-G-C chips! I hate'em! AND I hate those stupid purple and green dresses! Gakk!" Number Four got to the bottom of a ladder and looked up the long air-shaft.

Milo said, "Maybe they won't shoot you if they think you two look like ...Snow White's mice?"

Two and Four forced out a laugh at him and started to climb up the long ladder. Four said sarcastically , "Oh–yeah! We'll be Snow White mice! They'd never spot us as that!"

Two started singing in a soft, high-pitched sarcastic falsetto , "Cinderella, Cinderella– glad not being a fella.,sings loads in acappella, dramatic as Othella ...", she choked off and slumped. "Three loved that little song I sang for her. I should have stayed with her!"

"Two ,she might be alive. You can't give up because of what might have happened or not to her! She is alive if One had any say in it! Even if One, and Neko, and Chase were dead, One would have saved her some how! You know that!" Four was passionate and filled with optimism.

Two gave a sad chuckle and remarked sardonically, "We are what we are! Gadget is, as Gadget does!"

"Give me a break, until yesterday...I never even hear of Gadget Mouse before..."

Two and Four called down in irritated unison, "HACKWRENCH! Remember the last name!"

Milo rolled his eyes and clambered up the long, long ladder up to the Toontown Fair above them and remarked under his breath, "A little respect wouldn't hurt!"

Now:

"I don't get any respect. Milo... why would you expect respect from cartoon mice?" Larry's question caught Milo off guard.

Gadget frowned and remarked in a calmly measured voice, "I am not a 'cartoon' mouse. I am a human woman whose brain was taken out of my body, and put without my permission into a replicant's shell that is based on a cartoon mouse-girl named 'Gadget Hackwrench' and there I am. I am slot screw beneath UTX's screwdriver."

Larry frowned and said, " 'You are screwed.' Why not just say that?"

"Voice-Governor-Control chip. I can't cuss, curse, blaspheme or swear in any way" , she said in irritation. "Those gosh-darn ,fooling, shoot-sacks at UTX really did a job on me! Not to mention again...I look like a mouse." She then laughed putting her three fingered hands over her eyes, suddenly thinking of how she must sound to the others. "Sorry, golly, I must sound like an absolute doofus!"

Tiffany said gently, "But you are a BEAUTIFUL young woman, that happens to look mouse-like. Your laughter is your own. It might be based on someone else's...but it springs from YOUR heart! Own it. The light of your own soul is yours, no matter what lamp-shade is on the lamp."

Gadget pursed her lips in amazement and with her eyes bright, and a trembling gentleness in her voice said quietly, "Thank you. That means a lot. I don't know how to thank you for that." She cleared her throat and asked wryly, "Can I have another piece of ham, and a top-off on my chocolate milk?"

Larry and Milo laughed at that, as Tiffany got up with a smile and said wonderingly, " A beautiful, HUNGRY young woman, whose stomach is a bottomless pit!"

Tiffany got another slice of ham and more chocolate milk. Gadget curled up into the terry-cloth bath-robe after returning from the bathroom. Tiffany handed Gadget her food and sat back down next her husband, Larry. Gadget put the glass so her prehensile tail wrapped around it. She gave a little shiver at the cold glass.

He asked, "Shouldn't you get dressed?"

She nodded reluctantly. She said wistfully, "I ...guess I should. What is wrong with me? All my existence, I have been up after recharging for four hours and worked all day long. I suppose I feel lazy. Lazy?" She sat up and looked surprised "Oh my gosh! I feel LAZY! I never felt lazy before. Is it because I'm eating real food?"

Milo shrugged and shook his head. "I really don't know. This is unknown territory to me, Gadget."

"For god's sake! If anyone worked twenty hours a day , three hundred sixty-five days a year for five years–they are entitled to a couple of days off!" Tiffany exclaimed it, looking indignant.

Larry frowned and looked at each other of them and asked, "Look here–doesn't she have a REAL name?"

Milo nodded. "Somewhere. We haven't found it yet. That is why we were in the UTX Medical facility in Chicago. We were looking for clues to Gadget's past. I just don't want to keep calling her 'Four'. Even Gadget is better than a number."

"I AM Gadget Hackwrench. I think I am Gadget, there for I am" ,she said wistfully and sipped her chocolate milk.

Tiffany asked, confused, "I don't understand it. In ALL the movies and books and series I ever saw.... the people who had their humanity stripped away and put into robot bodies always have flash-backs and dreams of their previous lives and the like! Are you telling me that you didn't? That you haven't?"

Gadget nodded. "I never wanted to be human and feel sort of...well...queasy knowing I used to be one. I never dreamed of the unremembered past or imaginary futures. I still haven't. When I imagine being human, I still manage to keep my ears and tail. They are to useful", she said, putting her empty plate on the side table and taking her glass of chocolate milk from her tail which then uncoiled and fell to the sofa and twitched ocaisionally..

She looked at it and smiled. "I carry it with me, it's better than a coaster and I can swing from the ceiling on it! I don't remember BEING human! Ever! I don't want to lose my tail, much less my ears.." She rotated them through all arcs of tracking and looked around.

She smiled brightly. "I love this house! It talks, breathes! There are two squirrels on the roof, running around. There is a real mouse in the basement barking at a roach-bug. OOPS! EATING a roach-bug ,now! Crunchcrunchcrunch! I can hear the wind caress the shutters and run along the trees outside, causing them to touch and sweep along the outside of it. It MOVES and stretches and groans like a sailing ship on the sea. Can a 'human' do these things? Understand these things?"

The pair of them looked at Milo who looked at Gadget in awe, a thrill of the poetry of her wistful words moving him. "Uh...no. Your ears are like parabolic microphones, with inbuilt sound baffles. You should have been deafened by the gun-fire and it didn't slow you down. I don't know WHAT you were made for. You can see in almost total darkness, hear like a bat, and fight like a devil! You are super-strong and inhumanly fast, too. On a par or better than the best military cyborgs and short enough to duck into tight places and cute as a button, too."

Gadget was re-arranging her robe when he said that. She straightened up and looked at him , feeling pleased. "Really? 'Cute as a button'? Me? Thanks, Milo! That's the first nice thing you ever said to me!" She beamed at him as one shoulder of the robe slid down, baring one shoulder as she sat up.

Larry and Tiffany looked at him sternly, in a patronizingly quizzical way that made him feel about two inches tall. He turned pink, wished to fade from view like Neko-Ney, and cleared his throat in embarrassment. "You are ..uh....very welcome." He struggled with himself NOT to look down her top.

She pinkened and closed her robe up better, looking very pleased with herself, then suddenly jumped up and said, "I need to dress. You have company!" She turned with an alarmed look and took the stairs three at a time, disappearing from sight in seconds.

After a shocked moment, came a weak knock from the door.

Larry got up as Tiffany indicated to Milo to hide in the kitchen. He hurriedly grabbed up the plates, Gadget's milk-glass and slipped into the kitchen. Larry looked at his wife from the front door.

She smiled and said, "At least HE picks up after himself."

Larry rolled his eyes and opened the door.

A thin, elderly woman with deep-set eyes stood there in a long dark dress, and held a cane with one hand and a girl's arm with her other hand.

In a sharp voice the old woman said, "Afternoon Larry. SO you going to invite me in, or let me croak from exposure out here?"

Larry forced out a smile and said, "Hello ,Martha. Come in. Of course."

She did and looked around and said to Tiffany, "Hello, Tiffany. So where did you hide them? Your visitors? Who are they? I saw when you brought them home yesterday. Decided to come by and say hello. SO who are they?"

The girl looked up at the old woman, Martha and asked her ,then the Williams family, "Could I run upstairs to potty?"

Larry Williams clear his throat uncertainly and started, "Mrs. Winslow, we have.." , he started.

"..NO problem with that. Honey–just stay out of the guest rooms upstairs", Tiffany said in a loud voice directed upstairs.

Larry tried waving a warning at his wife from behind Mrs. Winslow. The girl looked at Tiffany and complained, "Mrs. Williams–I CAN hear, you know!" The dark-haired girl swung on Larry in curiosity. "Mr. Williams? What are you doing?"

"Uh...Bugs! Just some gnats buzzing around." he excused himself with a quick, though lame, explanation.

She scanned the area and reported in a steady voice as she ran up the stairs,"I see no flying insects in here! Be right back, Grandmother."

Mrs Winslow said dotingly, "She IS a wonder, isn't she?"

Larry nodded and swept up next to his wife and whispered urgently, "She is IN the bathroom!"

Tiffany looked shocked and called up the stairs, "Don't go in the bathroom!"

Gadget was momentarily frozen in the open window of the bathroom as the girl flung open the door and stopped in stunned silence. She wondered to herself if 'they should put in a freaking revolving door'? The girl looked uncomfortably familiar to her, though she couldn't place her. Gadget held her boots in one hand and as an afterthought, smiled broadly, nodded and then back-flipped out the window.

The girl stood frozen motionless for a moment before she broke free of her surprised stupor and ran to the bathroom window. She saw the large oak tree with it's jaunty fall leaves waving in the early afternoon sunshine and the tire-swing hanging into the backyard from one of it's lower limbs. She saw their garage and shed and the IBM Caretaker robot in the backyard trimming hedges. There was no sign of the non-human apparition she had seen.

Downstairs, Martha Winslow asked sharply of Tiffany, "What's that?" She poked Tiffany with her cane. "Eh? Why is that?"

The girl walked over to the top of the stairs, hearing the commotion downstairs.

Tiffany said tightly, "There is something in the bathroom that might upset, Kayla."

From the top of the stairs, Kayla called down to them, "It's alright, Grandma! It was...a big mouse. She looked friendly, but I scared it out the window. It is gone now!"

"Well hurry to the bathroom, Kayla" , Kayla disappeared into the rest-room and Mrs. Winslow looked at Larry and Tiffany and smiled,"I think it is so kind of you to consider Kayla's feelings! It is fall and that IS when mice and rodents come inside looking for a warm place to stay. You should have an exterminator come out to take care of your rodent problem! And put better screens on the windows, too. Of course these old houses are rife with holes that mice can hide in.", she added, trying to sound wise.

Kayla came running downstair in a clamor of tennis-shoes and asked excitedly, "Can I go out into the backyard to find the mouse and swing on the tire-swing?"

Both of the Williams answered in unison, "NO!"

Larry said, "It might be rabid!"

Tiffany exclaimed ,"The robot is old and doing the shrubs! It might be dangerous for a little...RABID?" She looked at Larry in irritation. He shrugged and rolled his eyes.

He whispered tersely,"It's all I could think of!"

In the moment of silence following the 'rabid' exchange, they all heard the squeak of the screen-door in the kitchen.

Larry said, "Uh...Let ME check on that."

Mrs. Winslow looked alarmed and whispered loudly, "Is that your guest?"

Larry stuck his head in the kitchen and looked about. Milo pointed at the pantry.

Tiffany said in to casual a tone, "That's ..uh...JASON! My Cousin Helen's boy from San Francisco! He's in town with his little....uh" She looked helplessly at her husband, who had pulled his head back into the living room..

"SISTER! His little sister....who has Lefrene's syndrome. They are just in town for a couple of days. He must have just come back from the....uh...", he looked back at Tiffany.

"The medical center! He's back from the medical center!" Tiffany finished as Milo came in the living room.

"Hi! I'm back from the medical center! Hey, Larry, I think you night have a mouse in the pantry. Who's this?" Milo's forced casualness was almost unbelievable. His smile felt more like the frozen rictus of a dead-man's smile as he faced Mrs Winslow and Kayla.

Tiffany came over to the now dumbfounded Mrs Winslow and said in a high-strung voice, "Jason, this is Martha Winslow, our next-door neighbor. This is Kayla—she is a persona-bot made in the likeness of ...uh...her grand-daughter."

Milo blinked quickly and said, "Pleased to meet you, Mrs. Winslow. Kayla, is it?"

Mrs Winslowe said sadly, "Kayla is an AGE-progressed persona-bot of my late grand-daughter. My son, Peter and his wife, Julia and Kayla all died in the plague. Julia died first, fifteen years ago. She was a doctor, a surgeon in fact. Peter was a biologist. Kayla didn't make it to her fifth birthday."

Martha Winslow patted the girl's head and smiled sadly, "I know it isn't her....but I wanted to see a 'what if' version. Also 'Kayla' is my favorite names and I had to have her look like something, and name her something. I didn't have much imagination. She IS a wonder. That Mr. Matamoros is a wonderful man to provide this so inexpensive."

Milo growled, "Yeah. He's one hell of a guy!"

Mrs. Winslow blinked at his hate-filled comment and said, "Well!"

"I'm sorry, Mrs. Winslow! I just don't like the man. I want to ask a question. You might be offended....but did you donate their...uh..remains to UTX medical for research?"

"Of course! I'm quite proud of what my Peter did! His death wasn't in vain. His donations helped save the world." ,she said proudly.

Milo felt sick and said in a strained voice, "I'm sure of it"

The Williams looked in a similar way and Mrs. Winslow said, "I just wanted to say 'Hello' and meet you. I don't want to over-stay my welcome. A pleasure to meet you, Jason. I hope your sister gets to feeling better. Good-bye."

After Mrs .Winslow left, the sad silence was thick with unsaid implications. Gadget came in and said, "That could be me...I guess. I'm not medically inclined, like number Two was. Does that Kayla have one of a....you know –what I have? Milo what do we do?"

"A brain. I know what you have. We have to find out whose it is!"

"Possession is nine-tenths of the law! It IS in my head. I need to find out who I am!"

Tiffany said, "There is something that bothers me about your story."

Gadget sniffed, "Other than we didn't finish it?"

Tiffany put her palms together and asked intently, "Miriam Hackensack? Is that her name? The problems happened after Four ran into her in the park! Why was she at that clinic? Is SHE the relative the clinic called?"

Milo stood up in shock and Gadget fell off the arm of the sofa to land unceremoniously on the floor with a thud.

Milo said in shock, "I didn't put it together. I didn't see the woman from that ride at the clinic. I didn't see the connection until now!" He turned to Gadget and asked softly, "Why didn't you mention her to me yesterday?"

Gadget sat on the floor and crossed her legs and hugged herself. "Oh my gosh! Oh my GOLLY! I don't know! I-it might have been coincidence. "

Milo pulled out his PDA and checked it's files. "Got it! Miriam Hackensack! She lives in Nashville, Tennessee. Let's see...on Natchez Trace, near Vanderbilt University. I have her phone number, too." Milo looked at Gadget.

Gadget looked back, her ears folding near flat to the sides of her head and fumbled out in a torrent of emotionally charged passion, "What ...do I say? Milo? 'Hi, did you ever have a dead daughter, and what's her name, and did you give her brain away to YOOOOOO-TEX? Are you my mommy? I might have her brain! You don't want it back do YOU? DO YOU?' " Her voice ended almost in a breathless scream as she sobbed. Looking very young and anguished she shivered in fear and stress, sitting on the plush throw rug and rocking back and forth.

Milo went over and knelt beside her and put his arms around her. She hugged back and wept full open. Milo looked at Tiffany and Larry helplessly. Larry looked embarrassed and poured himself a drink. Tiffany came over and sat down on the sofa and stroked Gadget's hair.

Milo couldn't help it. Until that second he still sort of considered her as not quite a real person. He was moved by her naked pain in a way that he had never been moved before. A tear ran down his cheek from his suddenly bright eyes. The intensity of the emotion frightened him.

"There, there." He was at a loss to know what to say to normal people, much less girls turned into mice-girls. He just let his heart speak. " I know you're frightened! It would scare anyone. If I were her...I would want to know. No matter come what may. A mother would want to know! You don't have to call now. Call when you feel like it" ,he said with feeling.

Tiffany nodded at his sudden vulnerability and patted HIM on the head, too.

Gadget nodded. She cried herself out and sighed with her eyes closed. "Sorry. I guess I have a lot pent up grief and fear in me. You know ...I might be her sister. Or cousin! I don't want to assume anything! That would be a disaster."

Larry said practically, "It might be one of a whole lot of folks! You might not get a positive identity from talking to her. Be flexible."

He sat down in his overstuffed chair and gazed at the mouse-girl framed by the afternoon sunlight. Her large eyes reflected light like a cat's at him making her look very mysterious and primal, like a goblin or other supernatural creature. Her tail trembled and slid over Milo's leg. Milo looked at it uncomfortably and Larry cleared his throat.

"We left off with you guys in the underground. You and you and Two? What happened then? Come on...It'll help going over the facts of this case while they're still fresh. We already found out about Mirriam! We might discover something else important! Vital maybe."

" 'The CASE'? Detective Williams! I thought you retired!" His wife was pleased, but mildly sarcastic, looking at him appraisingly .

"Oh do be quiet, 'diamond-in-the-rough'. We all need to be flexible!"

Then:

"Milo! You need to be more flexible!" Four hung up-side down by her tail, looking at Milo. She and Two had clambered over temperature/humidity/gas-traces sensor box in the vertical shaft and continued on, it not occurring to them that it might be an impediment to the human with them.

"Flexible? No way! I need arms like a gorilla to get around this thing! It's two and a half feet by two foot square. I can't get my fingers into any cracks or hand-holds!." He was frustrated and at an impasse.

One of the two Gadgets above him said out of the darkness, "Milo, dear, don't be difficult!"

"Four?"

"Ha! No, I'm Two talking. Four is busy moving around", came the voice out of the darkness She sounded sad, but bearing up.

Four's voice came out of the darkness next to his cheek, "Alright. I will lower my tail once I.'m braced. Grab it and hold on to it and I'll pull you around the obstacle."

She moved around above him and though he strained to hear them, no sound came to him at all. After a moment, Milo felt a snake-like slither on his shoulder. He bit off a scream and reached with his left hand and squeezed her tail. The awesome power of that snake-like appendage was like a boa-constrictor wrapping around his left arm as it compressed with vice-like strength. "Hold on!" Her warning was unnecessary given that he felt like his arm was penned by a force he couldn't resist and if he struggle with it, he might lose his arm..

They maneuvered into a long horizontal intake plenum, ending in another grate. Milo shook his left hand to get circulation back into it. Two and Four made short work of opening it into a wardrobe room the size of a small warehouse. They slipped in and locked the intake plenum cover back into position.

They maneuvered between the racks of cowboy, princess and spaceman costumes and near to more normal clothes when they had an unexpected encounter.

"Gadget! Lawiini! Hey What are you guys doing helping a criminal?" Dale, the chipmunk, looked confused in his Hawaiian shirt and white jacket and shorts. Looking confused is what he did best. The surprised trio of the two Gadgets and Milo came in a close second, as the five foot tall humanoid figure of Dale strolled around the end of the rack on bandied, fuzzy legs and presented himself. After a moment, the second five foot tall chipmunk came around the first. This one wore khaki shorts and shirt and a battered 'Raiders of the Lost Ark' leather jacket and felt fedora.

Two started in with a surprised, "Dale, CHIP! Golly, am I happy to see you guys–"

Chip interrupted her, "Holy COW! Get away from that guy!"

Four called out, "Abraham Lincoln calls Mickey Mouse!"

Two stepped in front of Milo defensively and remarked over her shoulder at him, "She's the smart one, too."

Chip and Dale didn't pause and rushed Milo, shouting, "I got him!

Two and Four kicked like can-can dancers to the chipmunk's sol plexus and the boys went sprawling, down onto their faces, clutching their stomachs. Two rolled her eyes and glowered at Milo.

"Do something!" She growled at him.

"Abraham Lincoln calls Mickey Mouse" ,Milo said in shock at the weirdly bizarre twist that things had taken.

Chip sat up looking mussed. "OW! Why'd you kick me, G- Two?"

Dale rolled over onto his back and stuck his fuzzy brown hands into his pockets and said in sullen supine surprise, "Great job, Four! You crushed my nuts!"

Four said in surprise as she stopped in front of the inventory control panel, "DALE! Watch your mouth!"

Milo looked quizzically at them and asked , "Hey! How did he get around the V.G.C. parameters?"

He climbed painfully to his feet and pulled out a handful of crushed walnuts from his pockets. He looked like he was going to cry and whined loudly, "A patron gave me some walnuts and you crushed my nuts!"

Chip rolled his eyes and smacked Dale in the back of the head.

"OW! Why'd you do that for?"

Gadget-Four groaned and said,"Oh, yes–that made a BIG difference in their personalities!"

Two and Four squeak ultra-sonicly at Chip and Dale for a moment and they squeaked back. This carried on animatedly for several seconds until Milo had enough of it.

Milo said intently in irritated disgust, "Would you guys stop it? Jeez! We are in some SERIOUS SHIT here! God! Killer thugs, armed cyborgs, and chipmunks! Ah, man! This day has gone down the tubes, straight down to the Twilight Zone toilet!"

Four crowed, "Good luck, at last! The LadyMouse armor is stored here. It has jump-jets in built for two thousand feet of vertical leaps, exo-skeleton that adds twenty percent to my strength AND is bullet-resistant! Really, real armor! The only real question who gets it? Me or Two?"

"Lady-Mouse?", Milo asked in state of confusion. "That sounds familiar."

Dale asked sarcastically, "Hey! Where'd you get this chuckle-head? LadyMouse, y'know? The SOOOOOOOOOper hero version of Gadget that Disney did as a thirteen episode series back in the 2060's. Got hit by a growth ray and did up some powered armor and flew around beating up bad-guys! Powee-zowee!"

Chip grumbled, "You're the chuckle head!"

"Hey Shut up!" Dale chirped back.

Milo suppressed the urge to strangle them both. Their helium squeak voices were giving him a head-ache.

Two smiled at Four and said with determination, "You take it. I'm already dead, remember. One percent degradation fault? I have a short time left. UTX will scrap me. They might assume I might not have armor: because they wouldn't dare shoot me!"

Four looked tortured as she nodded. Milo felt so weirdly put-off as Dale and then Chip embraced Two and murmured sadly into her ears how sorry they were. This was free actions, not preprogrammed responses. The level of these 'thing's human interactions were, frankly, eerie to Milo and he was feeling very creeped out by this.

"Now wait a minute! You might 'play' LadyMouse–but the costume is a COSTUME! You depend on it being armor and you'll die!" Milo was suddenly spurred into saying something by the suddenly horrific vision of Four being shot down like Five was because he had said nothing while she played 'dress-up' with the big boys with real guns and got herself murdered as a result.

Two shook her head and explained, "It was a secret project of Doctor Fairweather's to get REAL kevlar and ceramic armor for the costume to make it as real as he could get. The thing weighs about fourty-five pounds and can stop a Makarov 4.65 mm round at point-blank distance."

Four piped in, "...Can stop a Makarov round dependant where you get shot. I get shot in the head–I'm cat-food! Doctor Fairweather bought it out of his own money."

"You have to be kidding! Out of his OWN money? Why ,for God's sake?" Milo was dumb-founded again. The more he learned about Doctor Fairweather, the more confused he got. What was that man doing and more importantly...why?

Two and Four shook their heads in unison ,not having any answers and shrugged. Two snapped her fingers and looked at the chipmunks.

"I need to shower, so does Four. Before we chase your fuzzy butts out, to guard the door, what IS the situation here?" Two stripped out of her bloodied cover-alls down to panties and a tee-shirt.

Dale said, "We have two-hundred thirteen patrons and twenty-one characters and thirteen vendors in the front part of the ride. Roger's Toontown Cab-ride is a basic bumper-cars kinda thingee and is shut down for the duration of the emergency! There are a lot of scared people up there."

Chip gave a calculating look at Milo while Four went to get the LadyMouse armor and Two went to get the Suzy Mouse dress. Chip said to Milo with a conspiratorial look, "You go shower and I'll get you clothes that they wouldn't expect for you ...and a surprise! Hurry up."

Milo looked at Four when she got back and said,"That is weird! How did Chip and Dale throw in with us?"

"Squeak-mail updates and....they ARE Rescue Rangers! We may be made as characters to play parts in an amusement park–BUT we have a complete data-base inside us that contains everything we ever said in a cartoon. Every action is noted and cataloged and simulated for duplication in the real where possible. We are free to act NOW, because of you, but what do we have experience as?" Four shook her head and headed to the women's showers and after a long moment of watching her go, Milo headed towards the men's showers.

"I'm going to be dressed by a giant chipmunk! How jolly! I can just see Aunt Holly's face! 'Can you identify your nephew's corpse?' ' Why sure! That clown looking fellow, dressed up by a chipmunk!' " Milo felt like he was in a drug-induced delirium. Though on the other hand...he could see now, why Jerry was attracted to the 'toon'-girls...he drove that thought out as quickly as he could. He always supposed attraction to robot girls to be unhealthy, but then again–Four was a cyborg with a human-brain. One that looked like a cartooned mouse-girl! He was confused by his own reactions, except for one. "Damn UTX bastards! You will burn for your crimes!" He cursed while pealing out of his jumpsuit, soaked in Five's now dried blood. To get it off, he had to soak it under the shower for several minutes.

Dale was waiting for him with a big grin, a pile of clothes and a make-up satchel.

Gadget-Four came out dressed in the LadyMouse powered armor. It didn't hide her figure and was thin enough that the Disney Imagineers had to hide the 'power' of the powered armor in unit Four, herself. The bright yellow headset had slide-down goggles and was yellow in color framing her face with ceramic armor plates. The main body of it was a dark bluish-purple and had a pair of holsters on the back for her harpoon guns. She had one harpoon-gun in one holster and the four millimeter machine-pistol in the other.

Two came out in a long green, Middle-ages lady's dress and a scarf holding her hair and ears back.

Milo came out with a broken nose and scar and a long black leather coat over a black tee-shirt and black pants and boots. His hair was spiked and he had a tear-drop tattoo below his right eye. It was disconcerting to say the least to the Gadgets.

Two burst out laughing and sputtered, "Holy cow! You look like a software pi-rat! Arrrr! You DO need an eye-patch, though!"

Four stared at him and asked wonderingly, "Milo? Is that you?"

Dale said, "TA-DA! Not bad , eh?"

Milo said quietly to Dale and Chip, "I'm impressed. Not bad for a pair of chipmunks!"

Dale said, "Ha! Fake chipmunks! No problem! We are only chipmunks by day and Secret Double-Oh agents by night! I've watched make-up artists and we make up kids ,too! Same principle–piece of cake! If I were a real chipmunk, I'd be under a tree playing with my nuts!"

Dale giggled while Chip sighed, "Oh brother, You knuckle-head!"

Dale said, "HEY! Whatever works, works!"

Four, looking thoughtful said, "I have a plan. I think. I don't like the distraction plan. I don't want you guys to get shot to bits to save me. So.....I sneak out while Milo and Two wait here. I sneak as close as I can to the executive parking at the lift-park and snatch the Air-car and come back here to pick you guys up? I have jump-jets and body armor AND the bad-guys are ordered to take me alive! This might work."

Milo nodded slowly and said, "That is the best plan we have. It sounds like it might work.. I do NOT like the idea of you going off by yourself. How do I know you aren't just ...giving yourself up to save Two and me?"

Four frowned and shook her head. "I wouldn't gain anything. Golly, I heard with my own ears the order to kill the other replicants and YOU ,too. They would have me and kill you guys! They would do whatever and then mind-wipe ME til I didn't even remember anyone. How would that help?"

Two said in a huff, pulling at the green dress to get it to sit right, "It's the only plan we have."

Chip shrugged and said philosophically, "A plan no matter how shoddy and slipshod is still better than blind action without thought."

"Wowee-zowee! What he said!" Dale said in amazement.

"Alright ",Milo said. " 'No matter how shoddy'. Right. Two and I will be up front, ready to make a run to the Air-car when you land. You'll have to land at the Toontown Plaza, that's about a hundred fifty feet away from here out in the open. This will be open-ground to anybody wanting to take a shot at us. Two and I will run full out and try to make it to you."

Milo went over to unit Four and held her armored shoulders in his hands and said grimly, "Look, Four–we might not make it. If anything bad happens–go on! From all the info I have...the records of your brain would be archived either in the replication factory in Belize, or in the UTX Medical Headquarters in Chicago. Find the truth and bring UTX to justice if we don't make it."

There was little she could say. The odds were stacked against them. She bit her lip and nodded with a look of shiney-eyed determination. She backed up and said with steely decisiveness, "I will save you both, if I can. I won't fail. This is for Becky and Five and Three and the others we lost. Chip–Dale, Look after Milo and my sister...I mean G-2! Well, you know what I mean"

Chip looked sadly at her and said,"Good luck, Gadget!"

Dale just nodded and said with gusto, "You kick their butts!"

Milo said, "Be careful, you crazy mouse!"

Unit Four blinked back tears and said with conviction, "I won't leave you behind! They had better not try to stop me."

She turned and pelted up the stairs to the second floor.

"Look, guys", Milo said, feeling like he had lost his mind completely while talking to giant fake chipmunks, "If we get separated, I want you guys to find out what happened to Chase Victor and Gadget units One and Three." He gave them the cell-phone number of Doctor Fairweather's air-car. "They were beneath sector 21 by 42. That's right under Space Mountain, I think. Can you guys do that?"

Chip said with enthusiasm, "You bet! The Rescue Rangers are on the job!"

Milo gave them a blank look and said in voice devoid of cheer, "Great! Wonderful I'll leave you chipmunk rangers on the trail."

Chip grabbed Dale by the ear and headed towards the inlet plenum of the ventilation system. Dale called happily after Milo, "We're all over it! Hey, leggo my ear!"

Milo tried not to wince. He failed and winced.

Milo and Two as 'Suzy" went into the crowd in Roger Rabbit's Toontown Cab-ride. They got into position and waited for rescue from above. Milo hadn't mentioned to her what might happen if the UTX security people back-tracked Gadget-Four back to the ride where he and Two hid at. He hoped against hope that she would make it.

Gadget-Four entered the air-vents again and wended her way as close as she could to the lift-park. She cut about half a mile of open distance by taking some twists and turns in the ventilation system past huge fans that came close to ending her passage and came out in the Contemporary Resort, under the monorail-track. She snuck past a pair of Disney security-guards, sneaking by them as quietly as a 'mouse'. She hoped to make it out without injuring any security or police. She also knew her hopes would be dashed in all probability.

Four listened and snuck across an open space of the dining room quickly. She scanned the huge empty area and wondered where the people were. She heard the monorail whizz by overhead and flattened herself to a wall to keep from being spotted. She wondered, 'why was the monorail was still moving about the park when it is locked down during a security situation?' Her answer came all to swiftly as one monorail came to a stop and a gaggle of UTX security got off and milled about.

She hunkered down and made her way to the 'Exit' sign and opened the stairway slowly and slunk in. She raced down the stairs two and three steps at a time, sometimes going up on the walls to round corners. In the bottom stair-well, she encountered a pair of UTX security having just come in at the bottom of the stair-well.

She kicked one in the stomach with her momentum and punched the other in the head. It was so quick, neither had time to pull their weapons up to fire before they were knocked down and unconscious.

She picked up one of the guard's weapons and checked it out. It was a Makarov without the inbuilt grenade launcher. She noted that it had 144 caseless rounds in the nomex magazine mounted on top of the weapon. She gulped air and opened the outside door slowly and peered out. She shouldered the long arm and snuck out, keeping low.

She kept to the sculpted underbrush and trimmed bushes heading toward the ticket and Transportation Center just south of the Contemporary Resort. She avoided another patrol and edged up to the monorail track, seeing barricades up ahead between her and the Transport Center. She looked around and spotted the monorail coming back to the transport center. She shivered in fear and she swallowed hard as she braced herself to make a leap. She tightened the strap of the rifle across her shoulders and hunched down. She calculated the figures to allow her to jump to the top of the monorail.

The monorail ran by above her and she used the jump-jets to shoot past the monorail and land on it's roof with a thump. She couldn't tell if it was loaded with UTX security or not as she scrambled to hold onto the smooth top of the monorail roof. It was then she noticed that she had been spotted. An aerodyne remote pilot vehicle swooped low to try for a positive identity on her and inadvertently let itself be seen by her..

She unshouldered the rifle and fired a burst into the RPV drone. It fell behind and smashed into some of the perfectly pruned bushes, tearing them up out of the ground. Moments later the monorail had one of Ramos' Spartan heavy security robots land flawlessly upon the roof of it. The roof dished in slightly from the weight of the huge mechanism. It started slowly toward her. She raised the rifle up and sprayed the robot with 4.65mm rounds.

It didn't flinch. Neither did it stop. "Ah, fooey!" Gadget-Four shouted as she looked for some weakness, any weakness to exploit. She concentrated her fire on the leg-mounted jump-jet bell-shaped rocket-nozzles. The right one on the huge robot blew off and the left one got chewed up by her fire. She noticed that the roof gave way where she hit with the rifle-fire. She emptied the rifle in a crescent arc directly in front of the Model 211 still advancing toward her..

It tore through the roof-top lunging at her and fell into the monorail cab, which was luckily mostly empty except for a pair of security guards at the far end, frantically radioing for back-up. The guard driving the monorail hit the brakes and it lurched to a stop with a squeal of brakes. Lucky for Four, she was at the back of the monorail train, so she didn't spill off the front onto the tracks. Unluckily, she did slide into the hole just cut by her and the weight of the Spartan robot.

She cried out and grabbed the edge as the Spartan stood up and grabbed her ankles. She screamed as it pulled her though the hole and smashed her body against the floor.. She turned her head in time to keep her face from being pulverized against the floor of the train cab as she was slammed against the smooth rubbery floor again. Blood and saliva flew as she hit. It lifted her up out of the hole to slam her down again. She drew the 4mm needler and jammed it into it's eye-slot and emptied the magazine into it's sensitive optics.

Not having 'eye-nerves' it didn't rock back in pain, but continued it's last action and brought her down toward the floor again. She dropped her pistol and grabbed the edge of the roof-hole and hung on as it brought it's arms down again. Not having working optics, it couldn't tell what had happened to Gadget-Four. It assumed that she had been smashed by it's last action.

The closest guard shouted to the robot, "Hold her still so I can taser her!"

Gadget whipped out her harpoon-gun and fired at the guard as he fumbled with his taser. He screamed as the harpoon sank into his ballistic vest and he fired the taser pistol prematurely, striking the control panel. The taser short-circuited the panel and the monorail lurched into motion suddenly.

The guard was thrown into Gadget's arms. She grabbed him by the throat with her left hand and pistol-whipped him with the harpoon-pistol twice before she holstered it. As he went down, she pulled the Makarov off his unconscious body and pointed it at the other guard. He screamed and fired wildly at her as she spilled prone to the floor, on top of the unconscious guard. She protected her head with her arms and rode it out on her armor until the Spartan suddenly let her go. It pivoted it's arms forward and returned fire as it perceived it was being attacked by firearms. The frightened guard was sawn to bits by the 4mm mini-gun in the robot's right arm and died spraying blood everywhere.

Gadget-Four rolled to the side , leaping to her feet and butt-stroked the door's emergency release with the rifle-stock. The emergency brakes came on as the door slid open with a hiss and she grabbed an upright post to keep her balance. The robot fell forward onto the prone guard, crushing him beneath it. It jumped to its feet and held the now bleeding guard in a vice like grip, not being able to tell an IMMEDIATE difference between the sonar echos it was getting of it's suroundings.

As Gadget ran out onto the lift-port terminal station platform , the Spartan measured the weight of it's prisoner. The 'Gadget' it held weighed 210 pounds. To heavy, it decided and dropped the guard on the floor and stepped on him, crushing the guard's sternum. She could hear it clicking and using sonar to guide itself, and how it was going remorselessly after her.

A group of S.W.A.T. personnel reached the top of the stairs where she was, and she leapt into the middle of them by surprise. She dragon-stamped one man's knee, snapping it backward in two. She butt-stroked another in the side of the neck, sending him sprawling. She then dropped low and foot-swept the men at the top of the stairs, sending them falling back on their fellows, causing them all to crash down the stairs. She glanced at the pursuing Spartan and sprang up, her heart pounding in her ears.

She took the stairs to the roof three at a time as a burst of auto-fire erupted behind her, chewing up the wall next to her. She was sprayed with concrete bits as she ran up the stairs. A group of shock-wanded and taser wielding guards stood just outside the stair-well waiting for her. She spotted the other Spartan standing next to Milo's new Mitsubishi air-car.

She whispered, "Sorry, Milo" , and pumped all three concussion grenades at the second Spartan with a rapid-fire, "KchakKchakKchak!". The air-car SHE was actually seeking was at the other end of the lift-park, but they didn't know that.

The three explosives hit the Spartan like body-blows to a boxer and it went down when the titanic explosives went off, wrecking Milo's new air-car and several others around it. The power of the explosive picked the robot up and slammed it into the ground, tearing off it's left arm.

Gadget-Four ran up the stairs into the arms of the awaiting troops. She sprayed just above knee height, hitting several in unarmored places, sending them down to sprawl on the asphalt roof-top. One man tackled her to the roof, knocking the gun out of her hands. It skidded twenty feet away and skidded to a stop as she rolled over and boxed his ears through his helmet so hard, she split the helmet and knocked him out, almost crushing his skull.

She kicked him off and sprinted toward Doctor Fairweather's air-car. Two men in front of her tasered her to no affect, the mini-harpoons of the taser-pistol ,powered by the CO2 charges had no strength to penetrate her armor and shock her. She punched the one on the right in the face, sending him falling to the roof, and she snap kicked the one on the left in the solar plexus, dropping him gasping to the roof-top.

She was suddenly struck in the neck by someone using a shock-wand. She fell nerveless to the roof with a thud. A sharp kick to her stomach sent her flying through the air to crush the side of a Volvo Air-Lifter sedan. She rolled over on her side, blood dripping from her mouth and nose to see Ramos strolling up with a shock-wand in his hand.

He spat on the ground and growled, "Alright, Rat-bitch! This time...we do things my way!"

He swung his foot at her mid-section again. This time–she was ready for him. She kicked off from the ground and pivoted on both hands, kicking with both feet to his crotch. She connected and flung him twenty feet away to land in the remains of Milo's wrecked air-car with a loud 'crunch'.

"Fine...your way...ouch", she muttered as she climbed awkwardly to her feet, pulling herself up the outside of the crumpled Volvo, spitting the blood out of her mouth.

She pulled her head up as she heard the creak and rattle from that location as she staggered upright. Her terrified eyes widened at the sight of Ramos not only being on his feet after that, but the sight of him hoisting the wrecked air vehicle over his head in preparation to hurl it at her.

"Oh SHOOT!" She exclaimed and leapt aside for her life before the ruined car crashed into the side of the Volvo where she just was. She skidded to a halt and looked at Ramos.

Ramos shook his head and muttered in a low growl, "Oh NO! You rat-bitch! You are coming home with me. I'm gonna be a real man again! You are going to Max! Then you'll be HIS problem!."

Gadget heard behind her the still operational Spartan still working on sonar closing the gap to her. Ramos leapt into the air at her in a flamboyant display of cybernetic prowess to cross back the distance to her.

"COME ON!" She shouted in a challenging tone and leapt silently about thirty degrees to the right. Ramos oriented on the sight and sound of her jumping and rotated in flight to land at her previous location and to leap after her. He wondered vaguely why she didn't use her jump-jets to fly away as he landed in a crouch where she had been. The answer was sound. The jump-jets made to much sound.

He was tackled by the blind robot homing in on the last sound it had heard from it's target's location. It bore Ramos into a red Ford sports car with a huge crash. Gadget had landed partially behind a Saturn ground-car and rolled to her feet to the awful sounds of the collision and subsequent crash from behind her. Ramos kicked and punched frantically for all he was worth before he realized what it was and where it was from.

Gadget gathered up a shock-wand from one of the bodies of a downed UTX security guard and ran up silently behind Ramos. He was losing a strangle hold contest with the machine and starting to suffocate.

"Emergency over...", was all he choked out before Gadget shoved the shock-wand into his mouth. The Model 211 Spartan locked into position unmoving, awaiting orders. It recognized the authorized user, Georges Ramos and he had begun an over-ride. No confirmation was forth-coming. It started to run logic chains to it's ultimate conclusion.

Four knew she would be strung up by that machine's logic when it came to the ultimate conclusion that it is strangling Ramos. She pulled the trigger and shocked Ramos insensate with the surge of high-frequency, high-voltage electricity into the roof of his mouth, She dropped the shock-wand and vaulted backward silently. Ramos went limp, but she was unsure of his condition.

She turned and ran full out, keeping low between the cars until she reached the long. Cobalt-blue Boeing air-car. It had a vaguely shark-like silhouette and four vectored-thrust modules at the corners. She fished out the keys and unlocked the pilot-side door. She slid into the seat and moved it all the way forward, strapping herself in. She craned to see the Spartan standing up and scanning the area.

She had a wicked idea and checked the specifications of the lift-jets. She activated 'whisper'-mode and took off with the pilot's door open. It turned and started running in her direction and she slid the air-car off the roof sideways. She hovered it just twenty feet past the roof-edge and yelled, "Kiss my butt, can-man!"

It's target confirmed by voice recognition, it sprinted as fast as it could. She slowly gained altitude and distance. The Spartan ran up to the edge of the roof-top and leaped into the air, deploying it's jump-jets to intercept the aircraft. Being a stupid machine, it didn't realize that Four had destroyed it's jump-motors. It flew out-of-control down six floors to impact head-first into a Jeep parked down in the visitor's parking-lot. The jump-jet fuel and grenades caused a huge explosion that scattered car and robot parts everywhere as the air-car swept around toward it's rendezvous.

The quartet of park guards came in the far end of the building and started going through people's Identity cards. They separated out the replicant characters and didn't spend much time quizzing them. Gadget-Two had turned her skin brown to work as Suzy. Milo had noted it, but hadn't expected such a puerile trick to fool the Park Guards so easily. She had identified herself in a high-pitched falsetto as Suzy-2, one of the Cinderella Mice. The guards checked and moved her to where the others stood around. She went over and stood next to the Alif , the Elf-maid.

Alif was a beautiful elven princess from the 2025 movie of the same name and looked elven, was dressed elven and importantly—was armed like an elf-girl...with a real bow and quiver of three arrows. Two dragged Alif to the back of the character pack while one of the guards chatted up Princess Jasmine.

Milo thought of what might happen next. The inside of the ride was a huge room with two floors. The main floor was flat and had the bumper-cars parked on one side, the people corralled on the other side. The second floor had rear projection windows with 'toon' scenes being shown on them. The 'toon' noise was an unceasing background sound that people had ceased to notice.

One of the guards nearest to him noticed something on the UTX chem-sniffer. Chemical propellent for a fire-arm was detected from the crowd. He closed in slowly with Milo.

Two had wrested away Alif's bow and arrows by saying to her, "You know...these are security risks! You should let me put them into the Wardrobe room!"

Alif blinked and nodded reluctantly, giving 'Suzy' the bow and arrows. Two took them and disappeared into the rafters of the second floor. She simply walked over to the ladder in the back when no humans were looking and shinnied up into the rear-projection walkway area.

The guard with the sniffer came closer to Milo. He paused and looked around ,barely twelve feet from Milo. Milo stepped back in the milling crowd and fetched up onto the bumper-cars and thought hard. He suddenly got into one and stretched out in it. He put all three of his loose rounds out of his pocket into the Bumper-car parked next to him.

His heart skipped a beat when the chem-sniffer officer called out, "Hey! You in the car!"

Gadget-Two was upstairs when she heard the commotion. She had dumped the middle-ages ladiy's dress part and peered over the edge of a window to see Milo sitting casually in a bumper-car.

"What the heck is that goof-ball doing?" She whispered to herself.

The guard with the chem-sniffer was fifteen feet away across from Milo on the other side of the car where Milo had just secreted the loose ammo.

Milo tried a bluff while shaking like a leaf inside. He glared at the guard and said insolently, "What?"

"Get out of the ride! No one is allowed to stay in the rides!" The guard said in irritation, jerking a thumb at Milo to get out.

"Oh come on! Happiest place on Earth? I'm happiest on my ass!" Milo said in a begging uncertain tone.

The chem-sniffer guard put a hand on his side-arm.

Milo put up his hands and shrugged, "Whoa! No problem! Jeez, I'm moving!"

Milo pulled himself out and walked off mad, muttering loudly, "Asshole!"

The guard glared at him and snorted in disgust. He had almost forgotten his chem-sniffer. It lured him toward one of the bumper-cars. He got to the one next to where the 'loudmouth' had been goofing off at. He bent over to look in.

Across the floor, one of the guards asked, "Where had the mouse girl had gotten to?" They looked around. Gadget-Two knew she was out of time. She looked out of the outside window toward the plaza and saw no sign of Four. Off in the distance in the direction of the lift-port, she heard the distinctive sound of small arms fire.

Time had run out for all of them .

Two picked the guard next to the ladder up to the second floor and pulled the bow back and aimed. She was unsuited mentally to snipe anyone and had trouble controling her quivering arms. She remembered how Five died and thought of the screams she had heard from Three as she had gotten shot and Becky dying. She mostly remembered the feel of Three's blood on her hands and the heat of wrath swelled up within her.

The guard with the chem-sniffer pulled out a loose needler round and yelled, "I found something!"

Everyone turned toward him. Two let loose the arrow fly. The Security man at the bottom of the ladder died instantly ,without a sound , as the arrow pierced his left eye and entered his brain. She picked the guard next to him and let fly again. The arrow pierced his throat and he gave out a gurgling scream as he fell to the ground clutching the arrow sticking out of his neck..

People screamed and started running for the exits. Milo was close to one and since he was ready to react, was second out of the door. He ran toward the plaza as he heard machine-pistols blazing behind.

On the second floor, Two had ducked and ran full out around the circular walkway to the far side of the room. The two remaining guards riddled the walkway where she had been, tearing up the plywood and plaster sets with auto-fire flechettes.

Two popped up in a window and shot an arrow into the back of the neck of the guard with the chem-sniffer. He died immediately as the arrow penetrated his brain-stem and he fell face-first into the bumper-car he was next to. Having fired her last arrow, she ducked as the wall next to her exploded as it was shredded by the remaining guard's machine-pistol fire. She dropped the bow and ran to the outside window and leapt through it with a crash of shattering glass. She flipped forward to land on the hot-dog vendor's umbrella, knocking over the hot-dog cart and spilling herself and dozens of steaming wieners to the pavement.

The remaining guard hunkered down next to the wall for several moments after the mouse-girl exited the building. He then went over to Alif , the elf-maid. It WAS her bow. He blew her head off with his needler and as her lifeless body flopped grotesquely to the ground, still twitching, he kicked it several times and shouted, "Bitch, you meddling bitch!"

The other replicant characters cowered speechlessly.

Milo had reached the Toontown Plaza and searched the sky for Gadget-Four piloting the air-car. He looked back in the direction he came from and saw Two running up the side-walk in his direction. A gunshot rang out and Two's left knee exploded and she spilled screaming to the pavement.

Milo shrank back into the doorway he was in, as a S.W.A.T. team, lead by Commander Watts came out into sight. He approached Two with his pistol at the ready and shot her in the other knee, shattering it. She shrieked even louder and he, still not satisfied, he shot her in each shoulder joint as well. She sobbed and writhed like anyone would faced with death and begged for her life.

Milo felt helpless before such naked viciousness. He started pulling out his pistol and shook from terror seeing such agony, so callously inflicted.

One of Watts' men ran up and said, "Unit Four is on the lift-port roof! It has engaged Mister Ramos! Some of our men are requesting back-up!"

"Right", said Watts. He took careful aim and shot Two though both eyes , exploding her brain onto the side-walk, ceasing her warbling screams. "Now shut the hell up!" Watts remarked with some small satisfaction

He commented to the man who told him the news, "These things give me the creeps! They scream to much like real people, but they're just wind-up toys!"

Milo imagined himself getting that treatment and was paralyzed with fear. The sweat ran down his face and he felt like he would die from his horror. Two was just a machine. Just a machine! He kept repeating that to himself. She bled and screamed in pain and fear and pleaded and begged and died. She could not die! She had to have life to die.

He was still paralyzed by this internal dialog when Four landed the Boeing air-car next to him. The passenger-side door opened up as he saw the S.W.A.T. team and some others running back. He screamed , "NO" ,and fired his pistol wildly at them causing them to duck for cover ,and leapt into the air-car and screamed at Four, "GO, GO, GO!"

Four could see Two's mangled body sixty feet down the sidewalk in a spreading pool of artificial blood. She didn't need to ask what had happened. She hit the door-close switch and jerked the air-car into a power climb. The torrent of tears spilled down her face as the air-car bit into the air and screamed toward the stratosphere. Milo fumbled with the straps and finally locked himself down in the five-point harness.

He was babbling about how Two had been killed and how human she had died and just wouldn't shut up. Gadget-Four looked at him with all the naked pain in her soul and begged him, :"Please be quiet now?" Her voice was parched and broken and very high in pitch.

It shot through him and tore his heart open. He wept in relief of being rescued and from the shame and helplessness of not being able to save Two from the grizzly fate she had suffered. The guilt of it threatened to drown him in tears.

"Milo? Please see if you can find a 'stealth' setting or 'Electronic Counter-Measures' or such! We just picked up three bogeys on our six and they are closing!" She was anxious to leave their new pursuers far behind

Milo wiped his eyes on his cuff and started to go through the vehicle systems check-list as Gadget dove the air-craft to pick up some speed. The three UTX Star-sweep drone fighters could out-perform and out-maneuver any normal aircraft in the air and stuck close to the air-car.

She took them down to sea-level and pushed the throttle to the fire-wall. The engines switched from whistle to roar as the vehicle went supersonic sending up a huge wake behind them as Gadget and Milo were shoved back into their seats by the acceleration.

Over the radio came an UTX air-controller's message of, "Set down IMMEDIATELY or we will be forced to fire on you!"

Gadget was furious at these clowns, by now and had only one response. She turned on the viewer and looked at the shocked flight-controller, who had expected a human at the controls.

"Golly! I am REALLY angry! You people commit murder and kidnaping and threaten a whole park full of people to get me? Gosh–I have a message for Mister Matamoros from LadyMouse. Please relay it without editing!" With great anger darkening her face, she extended her middle finger and thrust it at the camera defiantly and turned off the viewer.

Milo shook his head in appreciation and said over the engine noise, "I can't believe you did that!"

She nodded as she brought the craft around, heading toward a storm-front of anvil-topped clouds. "I am very angry. He murdered my friends and your's ,too. It is the least he deserves, I think. Have you found anything I can use to ditch these 'bad-boys' with?"

"Yes! It does have a stealth cloak! I'll activate it–", he was interrupted by Gadget's shout.

"WAIT! I have an idea! Switch on the instant we hit those clouds and hang on!" She looked grim and eased up on the throttle. She hoped her vague knowledge of aerodynamics, literally , would not let her down.

They hit the storm in the anvil-tops , about thirty-five thousand feet up and she cut power to the engines as Milo activated the stealth-cloak. She swung the engines forward and reactivated them. They decelerated from supersonic speeds at a negative twelve gees of thrust.. Milo and Gadget were crushed against their harnesses, as they fell from the sky in an arc.

Milo passed out from the deceleration and went limp. Gadget started to black-out and cut power again. She swung the engines back around for level flight and restarted them again at subsonic speed. Milo dangled from his harness with a drop of blood, dripping from his nose.

"Milo! Milo! Wake up!" Gadget was frantically calling to him to get him to rouse back to consciousness.

He jerked and sat up and dabbed his nose. He looked at Gadget in dazed amazement and said in a wondering voice, "Wow. You really almost killed us! I'm impressed you didn't. Why didn't the engines come off? This thing is built solid! The military doesn't have this good! OW, ah,man! My balls hurt from that stunt!"

"What the hell?" Milo looked shocked. "The military DOESN'T have this good! What is this thing? I thought is was JUST a fancy air-car! Fighter jets can't fly like this! What am I involved in?"

Milo felt sick inside and was overwhelmed by the situation he was involved in.

Gadget said in a soft, sadly sardonic voice , "If you find out...you will let me know too?"

She pulled them out of the storm and headed them towards Chicago, and the UTX medical facility there, determined to find something out about whose brain she had.

–To be continued–


	3. Silent Voices shouting in the Wind

Chapter 3: Silent Voices shouting in the Wind

Now:

Milo shrugged and sadly said, "I still haven't found out what we are involved in."

Tiffany got up and pulled the drapes shut to keep anyone from passing in the twilight from peeking in from seeing their peculiar house-guests.

She said, patting Gadget on the shoulder, "It's almost dinner-time, why don't you go and wash up? It's a miracle you are still alive after all that!"

Gadget leapt up and stretched and nodded. She had fallen quiet and moody after going over Two's death. She paused and looked at Milo. "You said, '...and some others' when the S.W.A.T. team came back after killing Two? Could Jerry have been among the group running up? Could you have inadvertently shot him there?"

Milo looked at his feet miserably and shrugged and then shook his head, saying, "I just don't know! I don't remember seeing him. He–could have been there. He WAS in UTX's pocket! My hands were shaking so much and I was so frightened....I can't say he wasn't. They were going to kill me. I–I didn't want to end up like Two did",Milo finished miserably.

She nodded and smiled gently at him and patted him on the shoulder and turned to go up-stairs. She was part way up when she said with a smile to Larry, "Hey, you guys EVER going to fix the first floor bathroom? It's been like that forever! I'm pretty good with my hands if you want me to take a crack at it!" Gadget smiled broadly at them and went upstairs to the bathroom.

Larry frown while he was having a deja vu. "She sounded just like Paula, then",he whispered to himself and rubbed his chin, and became lost in thought.

After a long moment, Larry said, "You could move the Air-car you two have into the garage to recharge. If it would fit? The garage was built to house a gas/electric Hummer and I hope your air-thing isn't any bigger."

Milo said quietly, "It's longer, I think. Just as wide as a Hummer, given the out-rigger engine pods. Let me ask you something, Larry. How does Gadget strike you? I mean..really?" Milo's odd-seeming question struck Larry strangely. He regarded Milo curiously.

"How do you mean that?" Larry was wondering what Milo was getting at.

Milo shrugged. "I ...don't really know. I know replicants. In the past three days of dealing with replicant problems and live brains and such....I can't tell the difference!"

Larry raised an eyebrow and asked, "What do you mean? You lost me."

"She is supposed to be different! She has a BRAIN. The replicants have Doorways-CPU wetware processors! She acts as real as Two did! Two was a machine, an android— a wetware non-bio-ware android! One and Three were at least Bio-Ware! Two didn't act like any 'machine' I had ever run into before."

Milo blinked back tears and said in a tight voice, breaking with emotion, "Last night I had nightmares about her being killed again. She gave herself to save my life. And I don't know if she lived! She certainly acted like she was alive!"

Gadget came back down the stairs with an odd look on her face. "Milo...I want you to look out the bathroom window for me and tell me what I'm looking at. If you aren't busy?"

Milo sniffled and stood up and smiled, "Sure! No problem!"

Larry said, "I'll go to check on Tiffany and see how dinner's going"

Gadget looked at him and smiled in a warm, friendly way and said brightly, "Gosh! Thank-you, Larry! Golly, you and Tiffany are good people. We...we don't want to put you out."

He smiled back and held up a hand. "It is no problem! We like the company. It's been like a tomb around here and this little piece of excitement is very welcome."

She chewed on her lower lip for a second and then nodded and started back up the stairs, saying, "Thank you! And be sure to thank her, Too!"

Milo threw in, saying, "Yeah, you guys are the best!"

Milo asked Gadget when they squeezed into the bathroom, upstairs, "What's up?"

She pointed out the window, into the waning light into Mrs Winslow's backyard and asked with a strange note in her voice, "Milo, what is that?"

He peered into the dim twilight at the far end of the old lady's yard at a tripod with pad on it. The pad had circles painted on it and an arrow protruded from the center of it.. He shrugged and said quizzically, "Is that it? It's an archery target! Have you never seen an archery target before?"

"No. I don't like that one! She should get rid of it" ,Gadget said in irritation.

He looked at her in surprise. "You need to get a grip. You have been...off since that old lady was came over here with her fake grand-daughter! Tell me what's eating you? Was it the fake grand-daughter? It gave ME the creeps."

She crossed her arms before her and rubbed her upper arms, looking very uncomfortable, and whispered, "Why did we come here? I know I picked this site off the map as a set-down site, but I felt drawn here. Just like a gosh-darn magnet to a piece of steel! I...don't know WHY though! That archery target gives me the creeps just like that old woman's voice."

She looked up at him and leaned forward and said softly, "Her voice gives me the shivers. I don't know why her voice makes me shake when I hear it. Have you have had the shivering shakes just from being near someone?"

He stared down at her concerned upturned face and moist lips , as her chest brushed his stomach. He shivered and almost fell into the bath-tub as he jerked back, exclaiming, "Whoa! Look at the time! We need to see if we are on the news!" He slid by her and practically ran down the stairs.

She looked after him blank surprise , putting her hands on her hips in confusion and exclaimed after him, "What's eating ME? What's eating YOU? Milo?"

She said in amazement, "I just can't understand humans!" She giggled and followed him downstairs, saying, "Oh, silly me! I am one ,too."

The plasma-screen was on and showing the national news when she came down the stairs. The usual stories of storms and Middle-East strife had the head-lines and the program progressed without comment until the header of 'Disney World Worker Shooting' came up.

Larry called to the kitchen to get his wife to come out.

The image of Milo Finch appeared on the screen while the news anchor appeared to one side of his image. She was a dark skinned woman, with long black hair and slanted almond-shaped eyes. She read off the news, "For the third day in a row, Florida state police and F.B.I. agents seek this man ,seen to your right, Milo Jason Finch, aged 25 for the murders of two of his co-workers at Walt Disney World. They were shot and killed by Mr. Finch in what appears to be a dispute over a 'Gadget Hackwench" replicant."

Gadget shouted at the PTV, "That's 'Hack-WRENCH!' Not WENCH! Gosh!"

She was shushed ,while the news-reader read on, "Apparently, he became obsessed with her and developed a fantasy involving the said replicant. When confronted by his co-workers, he grew hostile and confrontational. When he learned that one was to be returned to the Belize Replication Facility for servicing, he acquired a virus from the black-market and infected the other Gidget replicants...."

Gadget again,"That is GADGET! Not GIDGET! Golly!"

To which everyone else went, "Shhhhh!"

"....replicants at Walt Disney World with a homicidal urge worm, causing them to suffer from murderous cyber-psychotic episodes. Apparently four out of the five of those kind of replicants was affected . The only one not affected by the worm is the defective one he has with him, Unit Five of the five units that..."

Gadget again retorted, "FOUR! Ah for gosh sake!"

"...that the Disney company had in Walt Disney World at that time. Over fifteen deaths have been attributed to this worm and Milo Finch's actions. The Chinese Ambassador, Wu Ling involved the F.B.I. in this matter and moved that the circumstances involving the near drowning of her grand-son were of suspicious nature. On an ironic note, the Gidget Hackwench replicant...", She said as an image of Gadget appeared in Milo's spot, labeled 'Gidget'.

Gadget pulled her hair and went, "AAUUUUUUURRRRRGGHHH!"

Everyone else went loudly, 'SSSSHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"

".....replicant saved the young boy's life, as we at CBS news reported on the 23rd of this month. Mister Maximilian Matamoros, owner of UTX International ,parent company of the Walt Disney Corporation, had the following things to say about this incident, in an excerpt from an exclusive '60 Minutes' interview with him to air this Sunday night at Seven o'clock American Central time on all of our CBS affiliates."

They crowded close to see this unexpected turn of events. Milo was riveted. He had seen 'Big Max' in a rock-star like haze before ,but now had a different perspective of him. The scene on PTV cut to Max's home on the southern coast of Mexico. As usual, Mister Matamoros was impeccably dressed in a dark blue silk shirt and khaki pants. The creases of his pants looked sharp enough to slit your wrists on, Milo observed. His black leather loafers were polished til they glowed.

Maximilian Matamoros was a late thirties in appearance with wavy hair and had a face so close to perfect, he could have any woman in the world. He often did in multiples, several times a night. He smiled sadly, playing the doting father for the cameras.

Gadget-Four said, "Wowee! Golly, he's dreamy!" She broke off as everyone stared at her in disbelief. She swallowed and continued, "For ...UH...a murderous, monstrous guy who wants to kill my friends and do heaven knows what to me!" She sank back into the sofa-cushions, blushing and wishing she could turn invisible.

Maximilian Matamoros crossed his right leg over his left and looked at the cameras, his dark eyes flashing with power. "My dear friends," he began as he always had, his cultured tones suave and witty, "WE have a problem. It is my fault for not catching it. United Techtronix International has millions of workers in tens of thousands of occupations world-wide. They are like family to me."

"It DOES aggrieve me when one of them slips up, or in this case, goes astray into the grips of madness! The poor boy lost his entire family to the plague and this apparently caused unhealthy fixation on things he worked with every day.

"The more human-like we make our machines, the more likely people respond to them as humans. Gadget-Four is a cartoon derived replicant of a hundred year old cartoon mouse-girl. Milo Finch is obviously unwell if he has determined the this 'mouse' loves him in turn."

Milo shouted, "WHAT?"

"SHHHHHHH!"

"It, in turn, has become delusional, but is probably harmless. To determine what he did to it, we at UTX need to have it returned to us as soon as possible, as SAFELY as possible. We will give a reward of one million dollars U.S currency as a fee to anyone returning our 'runaway robot' to us at UTX. If he still has it with him–it is obviously is not homicidal!

"He IS, given the large number of people he murdered at Walt Disney World! He needs to surrender now! Not later! My God! He must get help; he so desperately needs it now! After the plague, we all were scarred. Some more than others. I don't think he is evil...just lost in his own little world and can't get out.

"We need to help him, whether he knows it or not", came the compassionate sounding speech of Maximilian. Milo wanted to throw a shoe at the screen.

"Those were the words", continued the news reader,"...of Maximilian Matamoros, CEO of UTX International, Parent company of Walt Disney Corporation and ABC news. This is CBS News, and we'll be back in a moment with a retrospective look back to the year 2023 when the first Lunar colony was established and the plans from Earth's Isolated Colony about their sixtieth anniversary. We'll talk with Lunar President Mikhail Radenov on special hook-up and find out how difficult things have been there since the space-embargo of fifteen years ago!"

"We'll also ask Mister Radenov what plans the Lunar Republic has to deal with the close passage of the Galloway Comet, six months from now.

"First, this word from UTX-Pfizer Pharmaceuticals!"

Larry hit the mute button and sat back, slowly. He looked pityingly at Milo and Gadget, and said, "You two are screwed! If I hadn't heard your story when I had...I might not believe it at all, now. "

Gadget nodded, "Delusional, right. That—so-and-so! Gosh darn him to heck!"

Milo smiled at her and patted her knee. He then straightened up and snapped his fingers. "You know....what happened to Chase? They didn't mention her! OR Doctor Fairweather. Aren't I supposed to have kidnaped him?"

Gadget shook her head. "Milo–they didn't mention anyone by name, including Becky and your friend Ricky."

He nodded and sighed, "You're right. This is hopeless!"

Gadget frowned and clenched a fist in a gesture of defiance and said sharply, "NO! It is NOT hopeless! The truth will come out and wreck the plans of that man! Two and the others didn't die for nothing!"

She looked at Tiffany and Larry. "Do you have a vehicle?"

Tiffany looked at Larry. He shrugged , looked back at Gadget and said, "Follow me."

They went through the kitchen to the garage. Milo followed Gadget and asked, "Where are we going?"

She said with conviction, "To the truth!"

Larry turned on the light to show Milo and Gadget his old model Ford Desertstar SUV from the late 2020's with a retro-fitted electric motor. It was a flaked dark green , with one panel primer grey, and had seen better days. Larry fished out the key and Gadget walked around to the front of the car. She held up a hand and said, "This is good!"

There was a dark blue motor-cycle dating from the early 2060's under a sheet, sitting next to the SUV. Gadget looked longingly at it for a moment and turned her attention to the task at hand.

"I want you two to see something and tell me if I am delusional" ,she said and squatted in front of the front bumper. She reached under the car and lifted straight up using her legs. The large vehicle squeaked and groaned and the front lifted into the air.

Larry said , "Holly shit!"

The front of the massive vehicle raised slowly up, it's wheels leaving the ground, then dangled. She straightened her legs and gulped air and said, the strain barely sounding in her voice, "Im not through., yet!"

Gadget shifted and pulled up with her arms and lifted the front of the car up until she was fully extended with her hands over her head.

Milo said in awe, "WoooOOOO!"

Tiffany gasped out looking at the straining girl, "Holy mother of God! That is ....wow!"

Gadget gave it a little shove into the air and caught the car after it fell forward and down two feet with her crooked arms, then settled it back to the ground. She gave her arms a shake and sighed, breathing heavy and glistening with sweat. She looked at the Williams and shrugged.

"Well?"

Larry Williams said, "I'm convinced! How about you ,Diamond?"

Tiffany pushed at the car with all her weight, as if expecting it to float away. It didn't budge. She looked at her husband and nodded. "If this was delusional...We're all gay as a tree full of nitrous oxide snorting monkeys!"

Milo laughed and said, "I'll have to remember that one!"

Gadget smiled and said, "NOW I really need to wash for supper! ICK, you should vacuum the underside of your car!"

Larry patted her on the head and tossed her a rag to her to wipe off on and said smartly, "It's on my short 'to-do' list, after I rotate the house with MY Herculean strength."

Gadget looked abashed and said quietly, "I wasn't showing off! I had to PROVE the truth the quickest way possible with the least amount of doubt! My increased strength is all I have to convince you with. "

Milo looked wide-eyed at Gadget-Four and said admiringly, "Wow! I mean WOW! Holy crap, I knew you were strong...really strong....but I had no idea that you were THAT strong! No replicant is that strong! THEY are stronger than cyborgs! Jesus! No wonder you kicked Ramos' ass! He was just a six foot four inch muscle-bound Cyborg! No wonder you have so much body-power! Your actuators have to be brand new technology! I have never seen ANYTHING like them! I'd love to take them apart and see what makes them tick. No WONDER Ole' Maxxy wants you back. You must be chock full of secret technology! You must be some kind of test-bed for.."

Gadget finished wiping off her hands as her ears folded flat to her head and threw the rag at Milo angrily. "FINE! You do that! I thought you might like me, but you are not looking at me as a woman, NOT EVEN AS A PERSON! You've been looking at me like your NEW STEREO SYSTEM! You don't like anyone but yourself! You want to know WHY? You are so FULL OF YOURSELF, THERE IS NO ROOM FOR ANYONE ELSE!!" She ended up jabbing him very hard in the chest with her finger, while her tail lashed back and forth like a whip and shouting at the top of her lungs.

She stomped past him while he rubbed his aching chest and wondered what he said to make her so angry. When she walked past, her tail lashed across his knees like a black-jack. He jumped back, howling, "Owwwwwwwwwwwwww!" He grabbed his knees and cursed them now they were black and blue as his face turned red.

Gadget stamped into the kitchen her own face red, her fists clenched and blowing hard. Her stomach growled as Tiffany dished out pot-roast from the crock-pot. Gadget-Four glared at her belly and growled back at it, "Traitor! Shut up."

She looked at Tiffany with bright, wet eyes and said in a tight voice, "I'm going to my room. I-I don't feel like eating. I hate him!" Her voice broke on the last word and she ran crying out of the kitchen and pelted up the stairs. A moment later came a door-slam that shook the building.

A moment later, Milo came limping through, holding his knees. "Four! Gadget! Wait!"

Tiffany put a hand on Milo's arm and shook her head. "Let her be, Lad! She has a real head of steam built up and to talk to her now without letting her cool off, would be to put out fire with gasoline. You don't want her to belt you with a car do you?"

Milo bit out angrily, "What is that 'Hack-wench' bent about this time? God! I don't understand women! Even 'mouse-women'."

Tiffany sighed. It was going to be a long night.

Larry walked by the moaning Milo and slapped him on the back and said, "The news got that part wrong ,too. About you two getting along so famously and you know, being so... chummy. That probably wasn't even Matamoros, either. It was probably just a hand-puppet."

"Mmm, pot-roast! My favorite. Thanks, Diamond. Oh...you might want to get Milo here some ice for his knees", Larry said good-naturedly, and wandered into the dining room.

Tiffany looked at him disapprovingly and said reproachfully, "Milo–for such a smart boy, that was certainly an idiotic thing to say. You need to take other people's feelings into consideration! My goodness, you forget she is a young woman in that mousy looking exterior" ,Tiffany said simply. "Now go sit down at the table and I'll bring you some pot-roast and then some ice for your knees."

Milo went and sat down in a state of bruised ego and flesh. He had lost his appetite after that interchange of anger. In truth he wasn't sure which stung more–her words, which had cut him to the quick...or Gadget's swinging lash-of-a-tail. "I thought I was complimenting her, and I just said something stupid. I'm lousy with words. My Aunt Helen raised my sister and I. She had to work all the time and I was alone with the computers and robots all the time. I don't know how to talk with ...well...normal people."

Tiffany and Larry laughed in sympathy. Tiffany wiped tears from her eyes and said in amusement, "Oh! That's what your problem is! Laddy, there NO normal people! Anywhere, at anytime in the history of the world. There are no normal people anymore than there are unicorns!"

"How about those genetically engineered unicorns that Rover Genetics came out with a couple of years ago? They are real and have larger brains than regular horses and are gentler, too...from what I hear." Larry's interruption was greeted with a rolling-eyed frown.

"Larry! SHADDUP! Lordy—see? He's abnormal, too." She grinned at her husband and wrinkled her nose in amusement.

Larry said with an expectant look at Milo, "More to the point, even if you were an EXPERT at 'normal' people....'mighty-mouse-girl' is NOT a normal woman!" Larry talked around a mouthful of pot-roast and nodded to his wife, "It's good! Thanks, honey. It is my favorite."

Later, Gadget came timidly back downstairs and came up to the table. She glanced at Tiffany and Larry, making a point NOT to see Milo, as if he turned invisible. She cleared her throat and said in a quavering voice, "I'm sorry for getting so angry. I–I am not angry with you or you...just with Milo. I don't want to be alone. I'm very hungry. I–I'm not a threat. I don't want to leave the impression of being super-strong and out of control. I feel sick from getting so angry."

She interlaced her fingers and wrung them in misery, looking completely abject in her statements and thoroughly miserable.

Milo whispered quietly, "I'm so sorry for treating you like a 'something'! You are a real person." Louder , he said, "I am so sorry. Please forgive me. Next time, just knock me in the head just hard enough to get my attention." He smiled hopefully at her.

She dropped her hands by her sides and glanced at him then looked away. She paused and then looked back and gave him a little smile and a nod and said, "Alright. I forgive you. Don't do it again, please! I dislike feeling angry. It makes me nauseous. I really hate feeling hungry and nauseous."

The IBM Caretaker robot came into the living room and asked in a flat voice, "How may I be of service? Is it time to clean the kitchen, now?"

Tiffany waved a hand at it and said, "That's fine ,Bell. Please do the dishes and mop the kitchen."

It nodded and said, "Thank you, madam. I'll get right on it."

It walked across the room and entered the kitchen while Tiffany filled up a plate with food for Gadget. Gadget looked at Milo and back to Tiffany. "Bell? Like 'Alexander Graham...?"

Tiffany laughed and said slyly, "The telephone guy? Akk! Heavens no! Bellerophon. After Alexander the great's horse. I had to name it something! I wanted something unique."

She looked curiously at her while filling up Gadget's glass with Diet Pepsi and asked her, "So, Gadget–what do want to do?"

She sat down and paused before eating and looked thoughtful. "I can work on the car. I have complete tool use specifications and have knowledge of mechanics. I don't want to be a drain on your resources"

Tiffany blinked and laughed. "NO. I mean with your life? Assume we get this mess straightened out tomorrow—what do you want to do with your life?"

Milo perked up at that question. Gadget chewed for a while and looked thoughtful. She blinked and said, "Go back to work, doing what I was doing at Disney World, why?"

Milo choked on his milk and Larry stopped eating and looked hard at her. Tiffany looked at her wide-eyed and blinked speechlessly. Gadget kept eating for several seconds and looked around in confusion. She tore apart a roll and put it down.

"What's wrong with that? I guess I could get a job at McDonald's, but I wouldn't like it as much as what I did before. I was happy there, though...", her voice choked up with emotion as she continued, " of course everyone else is gone. I would be so lonely without Two and One. I'd miss Three a lot, too. She never talked a lot, but she had loads of affection. I don't miss Five, she was a spy, that's why we didn't teach her 'squeak-mail'..."

"WHAT!?" Milo was on his feet, looking at her agog. "What's that about her being a spy?"

Gadget went back to eating and shrugged, "Sure! Didn't you already figure that out?"

Milo shook his head in amazement. "Who was she spying on and for? How did you know?"

"Spying on me for Jerry and Doctor Fairweather, I think. I never found out. Five died before I found out. I know she was programmed to keep track of me and things I was doing and to protect me if needed. Two and One kept an eye on her for me. Three didn't like her at all, but we were ready to accept her as one of us. If you hadn't freed us from program driven restraints and goals...when during the shooting, she'd have saved me and you, Milo, would have died!"

She looked thoughtful and added, " I guess the key for us...I mean for One, Two, Three and myself, was my human brain", Gadget-Four broke off to eat some more and reflect.

Milo prodded her with a question, "Key? How do you mean?"

She shrugged and said, "I had veto power in the link. I could control what was permitted to pass into the memories of Five. I was comfortable with One and Two having full access. Three was so brightly emotional and had program conflicts, it was dizzying to link to her. She felt about things stronger than me. Did she have a human brain, too?"

Milo shook his head. "No. She had a standard mark 22 wetware processor, with the standard package of programs and features. Yours was the only odd one out of the whole lot. I examined everyone's 'brains' save yours. Other than Jerry Reynolds, only Doctor Fairweather was allowed to examine your processor. I figured it was some experimental wetware that only Jerry and Dr. Fairweather were cleared to deal with. It never occurred to me that you could have a human brain."

Milo paused and looked disgusted. He threw his napkin into his plate and flinched from the pain the sudden movement caused his knees. "I don't understand it! Jules Fairweather struck me as a kind, decent, moral man! Jerry–I would expect this from him. He'd sell his mother for a dollar!"

Gadget shook her head. "No, he wouldn't! His mother is in a UTX medical-care facility for Lefrene's Syndrome. That is why he spies on Doctor Fairweather for Mister Matamoros, to get his mother free medical care! 'Only the best for his mother!' "

Milo groaned and put his head in his hands and said miserably, "Oh my GOD!" He stood up and glared at Gadget-Four and said sternly, "Didn't you think ANY of this was important? About who was spying on WHO?"

Gadget flinched and then defiant. "Mmmm, no? I didn't think it was important. Golly...why is it important?" Gadget looked lost. "People spy on each other all the time, right?"

Larry said in amused derision, "Apparently in the Walt Disney World Technical sector! My god, more per capita spying than in cold-war Berlin, at least if you believe the old movies."

Milo said desolately, "I don't know who to believe anymore."

Tiffany pointed at Gadget-Four and said quietly, "Her, I think. I don't know what it is about her that seems so familiar to me, but I am a good judge of people!"

"Married me, didn't you?" Larry interjected, to Tiffany's amused irritation.

"...Even though I have my lapses, I'd trust this girl with my life. She reminds me of my daughter, Paula, dead in the ground these fifteen years. Maybe dead. I'm not so sure, now" She gave Milo a piercing stare and said quietly, "If there is ANY possibility that my daughter, Paula's, brain is in a robot, replicant or what-have-you in UTX control? I'd want to know."

"Damn straight! " Larry said with some passion. "Our little girl was a doctor, married to Martha Winslowe's son. She was a brilliant light in the darkness of the world, and since she died...a piece of our world is a darker place", Larry said, his eyes growing bright.

"Milo, you look at me", Tiffany commanded, "Is there the SLIGHTEST chance of some part of our daughter is surviving someplace in an UTX robot or replicant?"

Milo felt heartsick as he tried to formulate what he wanted to say.

He dropped his head and dumbly nodded.

Gadget suddenly spoke up in an unrecognizable voice which asked quietly, "She could have been an Olympic caliber archer, if she hadn't gone into medicine?"

Larry jumped up so quick, the chair flipped over and broke a vase on the end table.

Tiffany stared at Gadget in horror, with tears starting down her cheeks. "We never told anyone that!" Tiffany exclaimed it in a hoarse whisper, and stared, riveted at Gadget.

Milo was on his feet, and watched numbly as Gadget went over to one side of the stair-way as if she were sleep-walking, and pressed on the wall-panel in the wall under the stairs. It sprung open to reveal a small space filled with trophies, and a life-times paraphernalia.

"Oh My God! Only Paula, myself and Larry knew where her secret stash was located at! You–Are you...our...",Tiffany sobbed as Gadget leaned into the cupboard under the stairs and reached to the left and pulled out a dusty envelope.

Gadget Four turned with eyes filled with tears and presented the dusty envelope to Tiffany. In a hollow voice, strangling with emotion, Gadget said, "She wanted you to have this if anything happened to her. It's like a...memory of a memory. A silent voice shouting in the wind of memory, that I can barely hear now."

Tiffany grabbed Gadget by the shoulders and shook her gently as if to wake her and whispered, "ARE you our daughter, Paula?"

Gadget whispered, "No. I remember her, somehow. I know you two –as if described lovingly by a dear friend....as if looking at photos from the Link. The LINK...I KNEW her."

Milo said it without thinking. It just sort of slipped out .

"Two! Could it be possible? How is it possible? Two was an archer and had doctor-skills! She had skills that weren't programmed in!"

Larry grabbed Milo by the shirt front and shouted, "How is this possible?"

"It ISN'T Possible! PERIOD! Two was inorganic! She had an inorganic wetware Doorways-CPU in an inorganic body! She didn't eat and couldn't heal! She was a replicated android, she wasn't even a replicant! She was NOT bio-ware! Two was special...but NOT alive! I wasn't thinking! Get off me!"

Gadget looked at them all in confusion and said tearfully, "I knew where her will was. Where her secret place was. How could I have known? Paula was—had to be...unit Two. I don't know how. Looking at the link-logs...I thought it was just false data....like dreams. I never gave them any thought. That is what the program filter is for, to filter out corrupt or false data."

Larry let go of Milo's shirt and wept. Tiffany asked, "Who are you, then?"

"Hi, I'm Gadget Hackwrench–Oh you already know that! Sorry, reflex. That is all the answer I have. That's not much help, I guess. I–I'm so sorry!" Gadget dropped her head and sobbed. Tiffany held her and wept again for the second death of a daughter, thought already dead.

Larry said, with tears in his eyes, "I'll kill that Matamoros bastard for this. That bastard! These are crimes against humanity!"

Milo said simply, "It's just not possible for Two to be your daughter. I don't know what was done. I don't have a clue how they did it. Maybe they did a near-death engram of her brain and transferred it into Two's brain, somehow. BUT why?"

Larry went over and up righted his chair and said softly, "Ramos was right about that. 'Bad publicity for the COMPANY!?' My god—this news could wreck the whole world if it got out! Where would you start with this?"

Gadget tearfully said with determination, "With more information! I need to forge the first link with MY past. I'm calling Miriam Hackensack and find out about her next of kin!"

"I'm not YOUR daughter, but I must be someone's! Maybe ...maybe Miriam Hackensack's daughter", Gadget said hopefully. "I hope it's not a case of 'silent voices shouting in the wind' and I'm just remembering someone else's memories. Tiffany, you and Larry here feel comfortable to me, but...Miriam scares me. I don't know why."

Milo shrugged and said thoughtfully, "Maybe it's some kind of aversion reflex built in to keep you from getting to close to the truth. The more immediate the relation, the greater the aversion?"

"It makes sense to make the center of the lie, adverse to the truth", said Tiffany looking intensely thoughtful. "It must have a limit, though."

Milo nodded and spoke with enthusiasm, "It has to! Gadget was weirded out by the archery target and the sound of Mrs. Winslow! Survival mandated close proximity to you two, and must have over-rode it.. It must be subliminally averting toward the target people, and once a certain numeric target is reached , the program must disable."

Larry said, "Milo, you are thinking to much! You disabled the programed drives....including the aversion reflex?"

"Trained reflex?" Gadget looked quizzically.

Milo went over and asked, "We never got around to asking this in Walt Disney World! Gadget...when you met Mrs. Miriam Hackensack, how did you feel?"

"Like I would die. I didn't want to run away. I'm--Gadget is a curious person, and I kept that in character and reacted with pure curiosity. It took everything I had to talk to her. That...that is why I overreacted to that man. I was trying to leave and he grabbed me. I was ...well...mortified, when she stood up and defended me to him. I was seething when he spoke to her. I lashed out to protect her and had to pull back! I couldn't NOT hit him! I made my excuses and ran like heck! Golly, I went and threw up!" She wiped her forehead and looked upset.

"That's what I was doing when I ran into Two and One. They helped talk me down from the ...the ...RAGE that had me in it's grip. I had to protect her from that man. From some man? I'm still confused by it."

Tiffany snapped her fingers and shouted, "Voila ! Milo! The passwords that Doctor Fairweather left you! One might unlock her memory!"

Milo went, "Damn! That's a good idea! She was mind-wiped several times...IF it is password protected data, it might be accessed by one of them!"

Larry smiled at his wife and hugged her. He whispered to her, "I knew you were more than just a pretty face and great pair of legs!"

Tiffany giggled and hugged him back.

Milo read off every one of the passwords he knew from the list of pass-codes that Jules Fairweather left him. Nothing happened.

Gadget sagged in disappointment and Milo, not knowing what else to do, hugged her. She was short, but smelled like a young woman and was very warm and soft in all the right places. He let go of her to quickly, before he had an embarrassing physical reaction to her femaleness.

She looked at him curiously in that awkward moment. Milo cleared his throat, put his hands into his pockets and turned away.

Larry said offhandedly, "You know...they have to have surveillance on her phone, on her house, too. Miriam Hackensack, I mean! The satellite-cell phone may not be traceable, but everything you say to her will be seen by them. You know...as a cop, I used to run surveillance. I have a couple of tricks up my sleeve. First thing–we have to recharge your Air-car and quickly!"

Milo nodded and patted Gadget on the shoulder and said, "I'll go get it. I'll be right back!"

He seemed overly eager to get away from her. She noticed that one thing more than anything else...and it hurt her deeply. She fought off the urge to throw herself on the sofa and bawl her eyes out.

Larry said, "I'll move the SUV and Tiffany, you grab Paula's motorcycle and we'll move them into the back yard!"

Gadget asked tremulously , "What do you want me to do?"

Larry pointed at her and said sternly, "Stay out of sight!"

Gadget looked down and clasped her hands on her belt-buckle and said, "Right."

It was several minutes later that Milo returned with the Boeing air vehicle. Milo landed it before the garage with a gale of swirling leaves and a loud whine of sound. Milo drove it into the garage on it's small ground wheels and parked it before the recharge station.

Milo waved Gadget over after he turned the lights off. She came over and got the recharge paddle and slipped it into the front of the vehicle. He called to her, "We have a message on the phone!"

She slipped into the passenger seat and leaned over to see, while Milo hit the playback button. The face of large chipmunk with a red nose filled the screen. Dale announced happily, "Found them! They are mostly alive and intact. We don't have much time to talk! Chase found out that human engrams are encoded on the support thingees. We learned Widget is really USMC First Lieutenant Leslie Watts and that Fidget knows an alien language..."

In the background of the call, they could hear Neko-Ney scream, "They're coming through the WALLS!"

The phone was knocked over as wallboard exploded on to the pick-up, leaving it mostly dark, save for one patch where running feet passed by the lens. The call erupted in auto-fire and the phone went blank and the phone disconnected.

Milo gasped, "Oh my God."

Gadget looked stricken and grabbed Milo by the arm. "We have to save them!"

Milo put a hand on hers and looked into her huge tragic blue eyes and said softly in sad tones, "Walt Disney World is HUGE! Do you know where they were?"

She dropped her head and shook it.

Tiffany, who watched from over Gadget's shoulder, said sympathetically, "We just have to pray that your friends are all right! Who is Widget and Fidget?"

Gadget sniffled piteously, putting the shaking fingers of one hand to her forehead and whispered out, "I don't....I don't know. USMC? Alien Language...that sounds familiar but I don't remember it. Pray? I never prayed before. Does it help?"

"It helps more than fretting and worrying does. Having faith in something is what makes us human. You need to learn that all over again. I'll teach you, if you'll allow it?"

Gadget blinked back tears and hugged Tiffany.

Larry said, "No matter about the message. We can't help or change what happened with them! Period! We need to hook up Miriam Hackensack with our Gadget before it's to late, and see what sparks fly. I have a plan!"

Then:

One shouted , "I have a plan!" She turned and fired a burst at their pursuers. She said urgently, "Take the next right! Right ,right!" The breeze-way turned right and continued ahead Chase in the lead, turned right followed close on her heels by Neko-Ney carrying Three, and then bringing up the rear, Unit One.

After twenty feet, Chase came to a vent and a left turn. She called behind her, "Which way?"

One shouted, "Kick it out!"

Chase kicked out the vent cover and started out, only to be grabbed back by One. One whispered tersely in Chase's ear with her mouth right to the ear, "Take the left as quietly as you can and then the next right. Quick now! "

Chase went left and felt her way to the next right. That went another fifty feet and turned left in a curve for another ten feet, ending in a vent cover. Unit One squeezed by her and pulled it free and slid it into the breeze-way beside them. Chase looked out and gasped. She looked down a lit shaft, ten feet across and over a hundred feet deep. Her heart leapt into her throat looking at the drop. The wind from the shaft was very strong, pushing them back the way they came. Down at the bottom of the shaft was a huge turbine blowing air straight up the shaft at them like a vertical wind tunnel.

Unit One squinted and pointed down at a door about seventy feet down the shaft. She shouted into Chase's ear over the loud roar, "There! That green door! We go down!"

Chase was uncomfortable with heights and the thought of climbing down that shaft petrified her. Neko-Ney and Three pressed past them and Neko-Ney simply leapt out into the shaft with just a look and grabbed the ladder-rungs and scrambled down, while Three held onto to her like a baby spider monkey holding on to her mother.

Unit One looked irritated with Chase and pulled on her arm, then with folded ears, leapt to the ladder and started down. She paused at the bottom next to the heavy sliding door that Neko-Ney and Three had just went through and looked up at Chase through her goggles. Her long blonde hair swirled around her head as she glared up at the terrified girl. She gestured for Chase to follow her. Chase shook her head and snuck back to the last bend and looked around it.

The S.W.A.T. point-man was fifty foot down the vent-way from Chase when she poked her head around the corner and was blinded by his flashlight-beam.

He shouted as she pulled back, "This is Peterson! I SEE ONE! They must have doubled back! Where's my back-up?" She didn't realize he was just covering this opening and the other team-members were about a hundred feet away, fooled by One's ploy of the kicked off cover. They swarmed through the food warehouse looking for the rogue replicants. They reformed up and started up back into the vents to aid their guard.

He fired a 22mm concussion grenade from his rifle at her to stun or incapacitate her. She ran full out toward the ladder, as the grenade skittered around the curve and exploded on the floor behind her . The explosion stunned her and blew her into the vertical shaft. She ricocheted off the far wall and dropped by Unit One on the ladder next to the armored door. Unit One held the ladder with her tail and left hand and lunged for Chase with all her strength with her right hand.

She just brushed Chase's shirt as she fell by, out of reach. Unit One yanked back and closed her eyes against the horror of what would happen. Chase screamed and screamed for a long time. This struck Unit One wrong and she blinked in shock, seeing Chase floating over the turbine, like a ping-pong ball floating in the air-stream of a blow-drier! Unit One knew now that she had moments instead of fractions of a second to act.

She pulled herself down the ladder, as Chase flailed about helplessly, while bobbing up and down wildly. Unit One weighed in at strong 130 pounds of muscle and resisted being blown up the shaft, barely. Chase was a spindly 110 pounds spread over a five foot two inch frame. If the power surged, Chase would probably shoot back up the shaft. Gadget-One came level of her and wrapped her tail around the ladder-upright , hooked one of her feet in one of the rungs and extended toward Chase. Chase finally regained her bearings and reached for One's hand as gun-fire erupted in the shaft.

Unit One got hit in the shoulder, and cried out in shock, flinching as Chase rotated on her axis and looked back up the shaft. Up the shaft where Chase has been flung out into space at, was S.W.A.T. team-member Peterson, firing bursts down the shaft at them.

He reported, "They are at the bottom of some fan-shaft! They're doubling back below us!" He was only partly right. Unit One was next to a vent cover that would run back the way they just came from, but she had bolder plans to follow.

Chase drew her machine pistol from her waist-band and fired up the long vertical shaft. This caused her to become less wind -resistant, which in turn caused her to sink toward the huge spinning turbine blades.

The long burst she fired had little chance of doing any real damage, but one round of the burst that raked up and down the armored UTX S.W.A.T. Officer's body went between his thigh armor and his cup, hitting him in the pelvis. Peterson shrieked and overbalanced forward, falling into the shaft.

Far below him, Chase's shoulder-blades struck the turbine-blades. The rapidly spinning blades, since they were blowing air–HIT instead of sliced her, and rapped painfully against her back, causing her to spin out of control. She slammed into the wall over the thin catwalk around the turbine, which flung her pistol into the depths past the huge fan blades.

The 240 pound S.W.A.T. team member in full armor and gear ,still clutching his groin, fell so close to Chase his left boot struck her right thigh. The heavy UTX officer fell head first into the spinning mass of blades, which crushed and broke his body and bent and snapped off some blades, which flew like knife-blades into the sheet-metal walls around Chase.

One of the blades speared the metal next to her head. It hit so close, it sliced her cheek with a tiny gash. She gaped at it in cross-eyed horror. A growing , 'WthumpWthumpWthump' sound was growing from the now out-of-balance turbine motor caught her attention as Gadget-One, above her, screamed, "Quick! Take my hand!"

Chase knew if the turbine kept on what it was doing...it was going to be very bad! She leapt up the ladder with a shriek, aided by what tiny wind was left. Chase was trying to negotiate around the inverted, Gadget-One when the whole shaft jerked and Chase lost her grip.. She fell back-ward and Gadget-One grabbed her by the back of the belt as the whole bottom of the sheet-metal shaft was sheared off by the torque of the jammed turbine. The weight of the 240 pound ex-Marine was more than the old rusty turbine brace could hold in combination with the increasing vibration of the broken fan.

With a mighty roar and clatter , the shaft from just below Chase's feet down-ward, collapsed another forty feet down into the huge artificial tunnel they found themselves hanging just above the roof of.. Below them was the huge fresh-water pipe, and sewer lines, and high-voltage lines and thousands of miles of fiber-optics, all on one side of a two-lane road. The forty foot tall artificial cavern was lit and clean and went out of sight toward Orlando.

Chase gave a shriek, seeing the twisted mass of knife-like sheet-metal below her and catapulted up the ladder to the doorway with a scream, where the concerned Neko-Ney and unit Three were gazing in fear and wonder at the disaster which unfolded below them. They scrambled to get out of the way as Chase almost climbed over them. Unit One beat a breathless retreat up and into the doorway as well and after it slid shut, she locked and barred it with a crow-bar, while dripping sweat and gasping for breath..

Chase sat and hugged Three, who had latched onto to her, shivering, and sat with her back to the wall and panted in exhaustion and shuddered in fear from how close she had gotten to death. Unit One winced in pain as she put a hand to her bloodied left shoulder. Neko-ney looked at it and said, "Hey, it ain't to bad! It went clean through the meat. Here. Lemme band-aid ya!"

"Fine. Just be quick! We don't have long",One snapped breathlessly, and looked hard at Chase. "You almost got us killed back there! You pull a stunt like that again—and by Golly...I'll leave you behind! What were you thinking? Were you thinking?"

"I have fear of heights. Sorry. I was so afraid." Chase looked on the verge of tears.

Three held her tighter and said to One, "She shot back when YOU got hit. She got him ,too!"

One smiled ruefully and stuck a hand out to Chase and sighed, "Yeah, you did alright for a new recruit! Remember—those guys won't care about your fears! They'll shoot you anyway! Don't you think I wasn't terrified?"

They looked around for the first time and saw they were in some kind of pipe-fitters' workshop. Unit One spotted the welding acetylene and oxygen tanks. She got a look on her face that scared Chase. She snapped at them,"Chase ! Carry Three downstairs and wait for us. Neko! Help me pile these tanks up by the door. I have a surprise for our pursuers!"

Chase took Three and staggered out into the hall and down the stairs. She was sure her back was bleeding, and now that the adrenaline was wearing off, she felt like hell. She made it down the forty feet of altitude and around the corner to the bottom and slid down the wall and sat there, holding the shivering Three.

Unit One and Neko finished sliding the huge green oxygen and chipped orange acetylene tanks in an untidy pyramid in front of the jammed door. Unit One looked to Neko-Ney while striking a flame to one of the torches and said cheerfully, "Run!"

Neko-Ney sprinted for the door and shot through it to the downward stairs, and leapt up onto the railing and raced down it and leapt clear at the bottom. She was followed by One, who just laid the burning torch on an Oxygen tank.

Unit One hit the door-lock mechanism on the way out and the huge sliding door slammed into place behind her. She made it to the bottom of the stairs when the tanks exploded in a pyrotechnic inferno of noise that deafened them all, by blowing the three hundred pound doors out of there frames and dozens of feet across hall-ways. Unit One was just barely caught in the fireball that expanded down the connecting corridors and stairs.

Unit One was picked up and thrown down the stairs by the shock-wave of the fireball. The flames licked all around her as she covered her face with her hands and rolled on the ground down the hall toward Chase and Neko. Neko, Three and Chase patted out the flames with their hands. One's long blonde hair was now off the collar and her ears and backs of her hands were singed, but she was alright otherwise.

She grinned and yelled something. The roaring , ringing pain in Chase's ears echoed and she hoped she hadn't ruptured her ear-drums. She and Neko-Ney reached down for Unit One. They helped pick her up from off the floor. Then Neko ran over and activated the cleaning robots in an alcove at the bottom of the stairs, to polish the bloody, singed floor where Unit One had fallen.

They saw headlights up ahead on the road They ran up to the metal stairs which went up to a second -floor walkway, hanging twenty feet below the ceiling over the center of the tunnel. The fire-alarms rang and the water-sprinklers kicked on, drowning all the other evidence of their passage.

Unit One picked up a metal stanchion that had fell from the above fan supports as an impromptu weapon, as they ran up onto the walkway and hunkered down. The walkway ran down the center of the corridor, twenty feet above the oncoming traffic lane. The collapsed air-vent blocked the road and covered part of the walkway.

The large blue and white garbage truck hissed to a stop on its air-brakes near to where the road was blocked by the ruined air-vent. A burly man with dreadlocks, with a cell-phone in his ear, was saying as he got out of the cab of the truck, "Holy shit! Looks like the roof blew in or somethin'! Part of the roof blew the hell up or somethin'! No! I am telling you–this, THIS is some serious shit! This might come down on me or something!" The large truck driver scanned the ceiling in fear and glanced around nervously. "No, I don't see nobody aroun' what to ask about nuthin'!"

One, Neko and Chase had rushed up onto the truck and were over it on the catwalk, a bare eight feet over the back of the truck. Unit One gestured down and everyone crouched. She lobbed the piece of metal she had, to land next to the truck driver and ducked out of the truck driver's sight.

It landed five feet behind him with a loud 'clang' and bounced to a stop. He jumped and shouted, "OH SHIT! JESUS! This damned place is falling in! I'm getting out of here! You is on your own, brodder! Fug dis shit, mon!"

As the heavy Jamaican man climbed back into the cab, Unit One jabbed downward and leapt silently onto the truck. Chase hesitated and Neko pushed her off the walkway and leapt down next to her. Chase landed badly and sprained her wrist and collapsed moaning to the garbage -truck roof. Three rolled off her back and tried to help her. The driver popped the clutch and suddenly took off in reverse. Unit One and Neko almost spilled off the truck top, as he then braked to a halt and skidded into the water-pipe with a bang, denting it.

He turned the truck around and took off toward Orlando at a high rate of speed. Neko jumped down into the back of the truck and motioned toward Chase. She pulled Three around and handed her down to Neko, working one-handedly. One indicated to Chase to go down into the truck interior , and pushed her gently. Case swung her legs over the hole and with One's support and Neko-Ney's help, slid into the interior and braced herself to land in horrid muck. It was actually dry and relatively clean.

Unit One jumped down silently and dragged her back into the front part of the garbage-truck and took the first-aid kit out. Unit One and Neko worked on Chase's wrist, while Chase held Three in her lap like her little girl, and Three fell asleep right away. They passed by the valve station controlling the water flow, and headed for the Orlando Disney/UTX security station controlling entrance to the 'Moria-Road' used for years to quietly remove waste from the Magic Kingdom.

Chase shook with fear. Being shot to death in the back of a garbage truck is not the way she wanted to die. Before today, she expected to live forever and never thought about death. Now, dying is all she could think about. On the bright side, she reflected, at least I can hear again, and when they shoot me, at least I'll be able to hear it.

Commander Watts ordered a team of two men down the shaft to the door below him in the now ruined vent. The two men carefully repelled down into position and worked on the locked door. He moved back to the food warehouse and contemplated his foes cunning. The doorway combat engineers had just radioed up that the door appeared to be jammed and they were cutting through the door when it suddenly blew out into the shaft in a thunderously lethal wave of flame and metal debris. The two men just outside the door were crushed and incinerated instantly by the explosion. The one at the top of the shaft was set on fire and the others were sent sprawling by the force of the enormous explosion. The burning man screamed loudly as the plastic parts of his anti-ballistic armor burned brightly. The other S.W.A.T. members smothered the fire with their bodies. They picked him up and dragged him out of the ventilation system.

If they hadn't been armored, Commander Watts and his men would have been killed by the explosion. They pulled back to make plans and make sure their cover story held, and to request medical evacuation. Watts was already furious when Mister Ramos called him on his headset.

"Watts! Where in hell have you been? I need you topside at the lift-port. Unit Four is going to make a try for Milo Finch's air-car and I want you top-side to lend support!

"Sir–we suffered a loss of four men. Three dead and one wounded. We lost the trail altogether. I would have equipped my men differently had I known you wanted us to take on combat replicants. We were ill equipped to face such formidable foes, without equipment!" Watts voice was tense, but calmly angry. "Sir, YOU told me that they were 'harmless Disney characters, who wouldn't raise a finger'. SIR, They raised the ROOF! And almost blew my men and I straight to hell!"

Ramos shouted excitedly, "I don't give a RAT"S ASS about your men! Get up topside and give us support! Spartan-Two just engaged unit-Four on top of the Monorail! Get up here quick! We flushed her out! Hurry UP!"

Ramos hung up on him. Watts muttered to himself, shaking his head, "What a miserable bastard you are! I hope she kicks your ass." Louder, to his men, he shouted, "Jenkins, Rodrieguez, Sanchez, Hartley and Frenchy! You're with me! We're on the top-side detail. The rest of you-–pull back to Disney Sec-zone 3 and await my orders! If you encounter ANY of those THINGS–SHOOT THEM! We are OUT of the negotiated surrender business! Manning, Roberts and Peterson are dead because we handled it by Ramos' book! Now, fall back and wait for me! People, MOVE IT! MOVE LIKE YOU HAVE A PURPOSE!"

The ex-Marine drill instructor motivated his men like marines and stuck by them, but had low tolerances for 'certain' things. One of his men ,name of Sanchez, hoisted up his rifle and got cold-cocked by Watts. He sprawled on the hard floor, spluttering. "What tha fuc–"

Watts stood over him with the laser sight of his weapon glowing redly on Sanchez's head, right between his dark frightened eyes.

"YOU LEFT YOUR POST, MISTER! Peterson died because his back-up was in here, goofing off, looking for prey, INSTEAD of backing up his buddy! YOU BASTARD! I ought to shoot your miserable ASS and HANG YOUR WORTHLESS MISERABLE STINKING MAGGOT-RIDDEN CARCASS UP IN THE SUN FOR THE FUCKING VULTURES!"

In a low voice, "Instead I'll do this." He twisted the rifle at the last second and squeezed off one round into Sanchez's left upper arm. Sanchez screamed as the upper arm broke. "Look at it this way, Mister Sanchez! You get six weeks of paid medical leave while the company fixes your arm, and if I see you again, I'll put one in your head. Oh, by the way, Sanchez?"

Sanchez flinched at the happy tone in Commander Watts voice. "S-sir?

"You are Fired! Let's move out, men!" They left Sanchez bleeding on the floor for the bona-fide Disney security men to pick up.

Chase and Three both whimpered quietly when the air-brakes screeched and hissed loudly and the garbage truck came to a halt at the security station. Unit-One listened intensely and looked around, planning her next move. She and Neko traded pistols. Neko still had a full magazine and Unit-One had only two to three bursts left in the gun.

Neko-Ney squeak-mailed, "You are better shooter. I claw better. You are long range, I am close support?"

Unit-one smiled and nodded, listening as the truck driver climbed out of the cab to argue with the guard at the gate.

"What de hell is your problem, mon? Lemme de hell outta here! There is shit blowing up and falling down and shit! You got nerve telling me to stay calm and shit!" The heavy-set Jamaican man was angry at the corporate bullcrap and wanted to go the recycling hub and tell his buddies what happened in Disney World..

The slim , young, Chinese-American security-man came over and said in a soothing voice, "Whoa! Hey, Jack! Take it easy! We'll let you go in a few minutes. O-kay? The main office says an employee went crazy and made a bunch of replicants go crazy or something. You didn't see any crazed replicants running around in there did you?" Anthony Fong had to phrase it that way to get the maximum reaction from Jack, the driver.

"What's that you say? Micky Mouse with a machete? Holy shit shooting out Jesus' dog's ass! Let me go outta this crazy place! You gonna hold me here til Goofy or some fugged up cartoon bassitch comes up to play dice with my eyes or some kinda shit? Shit! Lemme de hell go outta here!" Jack swore passionately and pulled his pants up a little farther.

Anthony laughed at his paroxysm of emotion and was tickled by his swearing. "God, Jack, You really ought to write this bottle this stuff! You have a way of phrasing things! I need to look around the truck and make sure you don't have 'Micky Mouse with a machete' in your cab or in the back."

"What is the big WAIT for? I am late now for sure! I have to go back to the hub and tell them this wild stuff! They'll say I'm doing dope or some stuff! What're we waiting for?" Jack was demanding looking around like something would jump out and get him from under the truck.

Anthony chuckled and pointed under the truck and jumped and shouted, "OhMyGod! What's that?"

When Jack jumped too, Anthony broke out laughing and slapped him on the back. "I was waiting for that and another security guy to sign off on the inspection for legal reasons, if you're smuggling dope into the park or something."

Jack pushed Anthony and said, "You big butt-hole! I should twist you up like a pretzel! Mon!? Can I sign something to get me the hell out of here if I waive my right to twist you up like a pretzel, or something?"

Anthony nodded at him, and said levelly, "I really don't want to piss you off. This is all in good fun. If you sign this waiver, you agree to waive any rights to sue either UTX OR Disney Corporation for any damages caused because of, or suffered by you ,by any breach of security entailed by the shortening of this inspection. Sign here if you don't care if the replicant in the back 'plays dice with your eye-balls' and cuts you up for bait and yatta,yatta,yatta."

"Fine,fine! Lemme sign de damned thing and be done wit' it ,Mon !" Jack signed the word-pad that Anthony presented him and thumb-printed it

Anthony pulled out his mirror-wand and walked with Jack around the truck. Anthony told about how it was procedure to do inspections with a buddy in case of danger, but because Jack was bonded, it should be alright.. Jack let Anthony talk. He liked the younger man, but thought he was to eager to see action and was a wise-ass as well..

Anthony climbed up and looked on the roof, also seeing nothing. He and Jack went around to the back of the truck and Jack looked at Anthony as he started the hydraulics to hinge the back up to look in, and said, "Tony, you should get a drink after this thing. Jeez, you are way to high strung, my mon."

The back swung up to reveal a horrible scene out of an abattoir. Next to the door was the corpse of a dead cat-girl with her neck at angle that didn't support life. She looked young and small with her eyes partly open and unbreathing. A young human woman with short brown hair with a splint on her arm lay recumbent on the body of a Gadget replicant that was mostly under her. Another mouse girl was weeping over the human girl and fretting. The mouse-girl was holding the woman's hand and sobbing intensely and bleeding from her bullet riddled side.

She jerked around and whimpered loudly, "Please don't shoot us anymore! I can't help Chase! She's all broken up inside. UTX killed everyone! Please don't shoot us! Please, please!" Her begging was the same of a broken-hearted girl begging for the life of her mother.

Jack said in anger, "Those sons of bitches musta tossed these girls down that shaft when I was backing out! I heard a 'thump' and thought it must have been something." He climbed like lightning into the back and checked the Human woman first. She was battered and bruised but not suffering internal injuries.

Anthony climbed in, in a dazed state of horror. He put his hand into a huge puddle of blood next to the cat-girl. He stared at his hand in horror, "So much blood!"

The remaining mouse-girl pulled on Jack's arm and begged piteously, "Please help her! Don't let Chase die! Don't die, Chase! Please don't leave me alone! Not again!"

Chase opened her eyes and looked into Jack's. She had this look of someone who had seen death in vivid detail just minutes ago. She looked tired , but resolute. She said in a low, husky whisper, "Gadget number Four has a human brain in it. I saw it on the MRI. UTX murdered everyone who has found this truth out. Now you know. I'm sorry. We can't go back into the belly of the beast! The will kill us and make up bullshit to cover it."

Neko-Ney suddenly animated and grabbed Anthony's testicles so he could feel her claws on his man-hood.

In a state of complete sensory overload, he looked down to see a luminous pair of fully dilated yellow cat-eyes looking up into his as her broken neck straightened with a crack and Neko-Ney said quietly in intense humor, "Booga-booga!"

Anthony sighed and his eyes rolled up into his head and he pitched forward without a sound. Neko yelped and caught his face with her grimy boot, instead of letting him plant his face on the polished steel flooring.

Chase sat up and LOOKED like she wished that she hadn't. In a strained whisper, she chopped off to Neko, "You crazed cat-witch! What did you do to him?"

Neko-Ney turned red and shook her hand and went, "EWWW-ICK! He peed on my hand before he passed out! That is NASTY!"

Three touched Chase's mouth and looked at her as Unit One slid out from under her with her machine pistol out. Neko-Ney wiped her hand on Anthony's back, fussing.

Three looked at Chase and asked in a tiny voice, "Gee...will you be alright? Chase?"

Chase looked at Jack and said with tears in her eyes , "I am so sorry I told you that. I couldn't draw a gun on innocent people. Well, my wrist is busted, but I wouldn't anyway! I'm so tired! I don't want to die! I don't want these people to die either."

Three buried her face in Chase's neck and sobbed in relief. Chase smiled in embarrassment and said, "I think she thinks I'm her Mommy!"

Three shook her head and said, "The bad men wanted to kill everyone!. They killed Becky and Ricky and even mean old Number Five! They shot me! It hurts. I don't want to go to sleep forever." She was trembling and holding tight to Chase.

Jack stroked Three's hair and Chase relaxed a little. Jack said in quiet intensity, " I was in the Kingston food riots when Jamaica came apart at the seams way back in the 2050's. I remember it like yesterday. Oh, I seen death. I seen what rich men do to the poor, when no one person lifts a hand to help! De ocean came in and human feeling went out. I seen people begging and this little girl done moved me. I drop you in Orlando and I'm through with you. O-kay?"

Chase smiled and nodded eagerly.

"Lemme move the truck to the wall and you slip out the side panel and up to the passenger door without the cameras seeing you.. If you can move? " Jack looked at them. Neko-Ney wiped her hand off on Anthony's shirt again and sniffed her hand with a disgusted look on her face. Unit One got up and favored her wounded shoulder. One of Three's bullet wounds were weeping blood and Chase may have broken her wrist. They were in bad shape.

Jack got out of the back and went up to the cab and moved the truck up against the wall of the tunnel. Then he climbed up to slide open the left side refuse panel and unlocked the passenger door. Jack walked around the back and looked at Anthony lying there twitching.

Unit one leapt out of the truck and went up to the passenger door. She kept low and moved tactically. She opened the passenger door and peered into the small space and calculated. She thought it might work. She holstered her pistol and went back to the open panel and climbed up. Neko handed up Three and Unit One helped her into the truck cab. Chase clambered out and climbed down to the road with difficulty . She slunk into the cab, followed by Neko and Unit One. It was a tight fit for the four of them.

At one point, Three pointed at Unit One and giggled. "Widget! You look like Widget!"

Unit One grumbled, "Good Golly, as if I don't have enough problems."

Chase was confused and pulled out the mylar blanket from the roadside aid kit the truck had and shook her head. She tossed it over the group of replicants behind the front seats and said quietly, "Hey, you guys! Be quiet or the jig is up. Please?" Unit One nodded and they covered themselves with the silver side of the mylar, leaving the flat-black side outside.

Chase got into the passenger seat and looked pained.

Jack got into the back and patted Anthony's face. "Hey! Brodder! You better wake up."

Anthony started and sat up with a jerk, disoriented. "What?"

Jack gave an easy laugh and said, "You big wimp! My God! You put your hand into a puddle of hydraulic fluid and said, 'OHMYGOD! So much blood!' And fainted like a little girl! I taught you have a heart-attack and die maybe. Jeez, mon—you hypo-glycemic? You need lunch as well as a drink?"

Anthony looked around in confusion, "Where is the bodies? The cat-girl zombie? The babe with dead mouse-girl?"

"Tony? You are listening to yourself? Mon–you were moaning about that fugging shit in your sleep. Listen to yourself! You were dreaming! You want me to call an ambulance for you? Or maybe a psychiatrist? Hey! You had an accident!" Jack looked at Anthony's crotch and guffawed. Anthony's grey pants revealed the nature of the accident.

Anthony left the back of the truck and turned red. "Don't call an ambulance! Dammit, maybe I do need to eat. I do feel light-headed. They might let me go for falling out. Jack, I need your word of honor you won't tell anybody about this...incident!"

Jack crossed his heart and said solemnly, "I swear I won't tell anybody about this, mon! You got my word! Can I go now?"

Anthony walked quickly over to the guard-shack between the lanes and pressed a button to lift the gate and waved him on. "Hit the road, Jack! Get outta here!" He then got a paper towel to wipe the 'blood' off on. Anthony was angry with himself and feeling humiliated by the whole thing. He grabbed up his coffee cup and checked it. It was half-full of lukewarm coffee.

"Perfect", he said and carefully poured the contents across his lap from crotch to left-hand pocket. He happened to look up as Jack climbed back into the cab of his truck. He saw the strikingly beautiful passenger in the passenger seat with a splint on her right wrist. She saw him looking at her and waved at him left-handedly.

Chase called out to him, "Thanks for the splint! Pleasure meeting you...Tony!"

He stood up again and looked incredulously at her as Jack closed the door and drove over the now retracted 'severe tire damage' spikes and pulled out onto the ramp to Interstate 4.

"That was the girl in the back? Splint? What happened?" He ran the video from the two working security cameras in the entrance back and watched the truck pull up and Jack gets out. He watched the interplay. He went over and climbed into the driver's seat to look around.

He strained to see into the cab windows, but couldn't see past the bright reflections from outside. Anthony frustrated. He only spent a few seconds in the cab. He checked his image for reactions as the walk-around with the mirror-wand was done. They went into the truck back and disappeared.

"What in hell?" Anthony advanced the recording ten minutes and Jack got out and looked straight at the cameras. He went up front to the cab and climbed in and backed the truck up and went forward again, moving the truck closer to the side-wall. "What happened here?"

He watched Jack get out and go over to the unseen side of the truck for a minute, then walk back around the front of the truck, around the seen side to the back. He could make out the passenger-side door opened and dark movement in it. It was so dark in the cab and so bright outside, he couldn't make it out on the dim image.

He looked up as the phone rang in the shack. He just missed seeing the image of Gadget-One climbing behind the driver's seat and ducking out of sight. He picked up the phone and said, "Guard-station 34, Fong here!"

It was his supervisor. "Fong! Where the hell have you been? I called you six minutes ago! We have a situation and I want those doors to the interstate locked manually. The remote controls on that door were severed during that explosion!"

Anthony Fong swallowed and said, "I was inspecting and clearing a garbage truck for leaving. He had...his stereo on so loud and I was so close to it, I didn't hear the phone. Aren't we supposed to keep this entry-way open for emergency vehicles? That explosion was just six miles from here in the main-body, aren't ambulances going to...."

"FONG! SHUT THE DOORS! Now! There is a Red alert in effect! Lock it up!" The supervisor was furious at the limited resources he had and this was no help to him.

Anthony Fong pulled the levers and the metal grates to seal the entry-way slid screeching out of the ceiling with a rattling crash. With a cold feeling, he listened to the supervisor on the phone continue, "You are some kind of worthless incompetent! Fong, I'm writing you up and putting you on report!"

He looked down at his coffee-stain and said quietly, "What a great day this has been."

On the garbage truck, Chase sweated bullets. Unit One said to her, "You did well. He should be completely confused by now. Glad I can hear so well?"

Chase bit off a short, pained laugh, "You know it!"

Three said of Unit One in a playful, mocking tone, "Smell like burned hair–look like Widget!"

Chase asked, "What–who is 'Widget' ?"

Unit One said, "Gadget's irritating cousin on her mother's side who caused trouble to the New Rescue Rangers in episode 10:'Ringing down the Rubble' and episode 23:'Twin Daughters of Different Mothers'. Usually if we need an irritating, immature twip to play 'Widget', we 'volunteer' number Three to do it! She's ALWAYS in character!"

Three said in outrage, "Hey!"

Jack laughed, "God! Sounds just like my little girls going at it! Where you goin' to, pretty lady?"

Chase frowned and thought heavily. She hadn't thought that they would get out, so really had not thought about it.

"Mmm? Chase? I'm ...mmm... bleeding again." Came a quiet complaint from behind her from number Three.

Chase touched the little replicant's worried face with her finger-tips of her left hand and looked back at Jack. "Take us to the Lassiter Free Clinic downtown." She hated to call on someone she already owed so much to, but desperate times DID call for desperate measures.

Jack shrugged and said ,"Sure t'ing, pretty lady! You leave everything to ole' Jack!"

Minutes later, they braked to a stop across the street from the 'Lassiter Free Clinic' a dingy looking place that had seen better times decades previously. Several homeless people wandered around outside of it. Chase got out painfully and said to Jack ,while the replicant girls piled out of the truck cab, "Thank you so much for all the help! I--I can't repay this kindness!"

Chase was sniffling with gratitude when she said this to Jack. Jack smiled and said wisely, "A famous Jamaican said, 'Favors can only be paid forward. As you are done for–do that for another, and so we turn the Earth wit' kindness.' I do–then you do for somebody else! Try not to get shot up anymore, now. Good-bye"

Three was last to get out, and turned to Jack as Chase took her by under the arms and said, "Thank you, Mister Jack! You shouldn't cuss so much. It isn't a good thing to do. Your kids hear you and cuss to. Golly! "

"You a cute little thing ! Alright...I'll try to stop! Take care." Jack gave her a little smile and wave.

Chase closed the door and blinked back tears and watched the truck pull away. She thought of all her rich friends in medical School and in the private High-school she went to and never once thought of garbage men as humans. "He wasn't just a 'garbage man'. My God, he was a human being, too!" She turned red from the shame.

"Chase...weird looking people are looking at us!" Neko-Ney commented uncomfortably looking at the homeless people staring at them in curiosity.

'Widget' or Unit One glared around her defensively, ready to draw her machine pistol out of her jacket. Three had her face mostly pressed up to Chase's back and looked like a shy five-year-old in the city for the first time.

"Come on girls, we're going to the doctor!" She stewarded them across the street and into the Free Clinic.

The triage nurse was a burly lady with brown hair and a wrestler's build. She was alarmed when a disheveled young woman came in with a group of bloody replicants. She recognized the young woman after a moment of surprise.

"Chase? Chase Victor? Were you in a car wreck? Are you alright?"

"I'm fine, Maggie! Busted wrist, but I need Hank to take a look at my charges. We have a couple of contusions and puncture wounds he might need to look at. I might need to see if my wrist is broken",Chase said, bringing the replicant girls around the counter.

Doctor Hank Lassiter was thirty or more years out of medical school and was a scruffy looking bean-pole of a man with a roman nose and sharp gimlet eyes that widened when he saw Chase. He rushed forward and asked, "What happened? It's good to see you again so soon, but not under these conditions!" He lead them to the patient entrance and opened it and stared at them.

"Oh, You have little ...uh, people with you! You need to bring them into the back. You know, Chase...I usually treat people–not bio-ware!" They rushed into the examination room, where Chase lifted Three onto the table and lifted her shirt, showing Doctor Lassiter the blood soaked bandages.

Chase rattled off, "This girl was hit by needler rounds, three times in the upper thoracic cavity. Someone performed emergency sealing, but it was a quick job and a lot happened since then."

Chase continued, indicating Unit One, "Your second patient has first and second degree burns on her neck and ears, and was shot with a rifle in the upper shoulder muscle group.

"Your third patient has a possible broken wrist and various contusions, abrasions ,sprains ,strains and lacerations all over my freaking body !" Chase said that while pulling up a stool by Three's right side and sitting down holding Three's right hand. Chase was unsteady enough, she almost missed the stool.

Doctor Lassiter said in alarm, "Maybe I should see you now?"

Chase shook her head and rubbed Three's cheek with her knuckles and said with a little smile, "Take care of her first, I can wait."

Three smiled warmly at Chase and asked shyly of the doctor, "If I'm good, do I get a lolly-pop?"

Neko-Ney suddenly exclaimed, "I AM good! I didn't get wounded at all while those dozens of guys were trying to kill us! I want canned tuna fish and a back-rub, I am so good! Worship me! I'm a cat!" She beamed, purring.

Hank Lassiter had seen a lot of weird things in the thirty some odd years he had been a doctor, but he was put off by these replicants. He cleared his throat, while looking in the stomach of number Three with a high-resolution table-mounted MRI scanner.

" 'Dozens of guys trying to kill us'? Uh...Chase? What are these...ulm...people? Who is trying to kill you?" Doctor Lassiter was a gentle man, and had trouble imagining why one person would hurt another, much less why dozens of men would try to kill Chase. " Didn't you just start work at Disney World yesterday?"

"It's UTX. They put a live HUMAN brain in the body of Gadget-Four! When we found out–they had these hit-men-thug kinda guys show up to whack us as some kinda global conspiracy cover-up! Oh my god...it's been a terrible morning! At first I was excited and stuff, but people died! This girl named Becky , who pulled a bad joke on the Chinese, and this really cute security guy named Ricky were killed by UTX shooters" ,Chase said in a desolate, desperate way.

Doctor Lassiter cleaned the wounds on Three's stomach and administered a coagulant and then dressed the wounds. He shook his head and said, "Chase—you've been looking for global conspiracies and bigfoot and these wild things all the time I've known you! UTX and it's subsidiaries have done so much to make this world a better place, it just seems out of character for them to be this big global group of 'super-EVIL super-spies' kind of folk! I on! You have to admit that it sounds unbelievable!"

Unit One said sharply, "One of those 'unbelievable' operatives tried to shoot Chase to death with a 4.65mm Makarov combat rifle, firing depleted uranium slugs at her, one of which hit me in the shoulder before she shot him to death in an air-shaft! If I were you–I'd hop on the old 'Believe IT' monorail and understand this is the straight deal from people who were there."

Three said around her lolly-pop, "That's our Widget! Yep! Tol' you. Very Widget-wike! Mmmm Wemonwy! My fawowite!"

Neko-Ney put a hand over her face and said, "I do not know this mouse! If you're talking–Take out the lolly!"

"Noh! You'ww twy to wick it!" Three said petulantly and kicked her feet rhythmically while Doctor Lassiter examined Unit One's shoulder.

Unit One looked side-long at Three and asked to Chase, "What did Milo do to her...to US when he removed the personality program constraints? I knew that Three was child-like, but Golly--OW!" She winced as Doctor Lassiter moved her shoulder.

He looked at her and looked at the three-dimensional display of the MRI read-out and said, "Some of the aluminum cladding of the round came off in the wound. It is slightly more radioactive than background radiation. Widget? Can I call you Widget?"

She nodded and said rolling her eyes, "Sure, why not? At least it's not a curse-word."

"Widget, I can try to put you under or anesthetize the wound area with Lidacaine or Marcaine and then extract the fragments. The problem is...you are a replicant! I am a DOCTOR! Not a replicant repair technician! I have NO idea whether the Lidacaine will work or not. If not–it will hurt like hell!" The concerned Doctor Lassiter looked at his patient and wondered what her reaction would be. Chase kept looking back and forth from Widget to Three and they acted as different as night and day.

Widget shrugged and exclaimed, "OW! I hope it'll hurt less than that. I'm tough. Heck, I didn't even cry even when I almost blew myself to kingdom come! WOWEE! Eight oxygen and acetylene tanks really blow up good!" She laughed an winked at Chase. "Note to self:Next time–run FASTER!"

Chase sat there with her mouth open and stared at Widget in disbelief. "Who are you? You don't act like Gadget!"

'Widget' winced as Hank started probing the wound with a pair of forceps after injecting the area with Lidicaine . She said through gritted teeth, "Alright–it doesn't kill the pain. Gosh, GOSH! Hurry it up!"

She looked in pain , but with clear eyes at Chase, and said, "I am who I am. Who I am when not playing Gadget. NNNG! Born in the fire, and tempered like steel. Always faithful to my friends! OwwwwnnNNNNNG! A-always faithful." She finished speaking, drenched in sweat and Hank worked on sealing up her shoulder.

Hank said in amazement, "You sound like a mouse-Marine! What's your rank, soldier?" Hank asked the question in jest, not really expecting a reply

"First Lieutenant, sir! Flight crew pilot, sir" , she snapped without thinking and looked thoughtful. "Where did that come from?"

Chase thought in a rush about what she said and how they reacted. She sat anxiously while Hank finished bandaging 'Widget's' shoulder.

Chase, in a rush of frightened inspiration, jumped to her feet in a surge of adrenaline and shouted in Widget's face, "You say 'SIR' when you address an officer! What is your name and rank?!?"

Widget leapt to her feet in a practiced move and saluted smartly and shouted back, "Sir! First Lieutenant ....Leslie Watts, Sir!"

Chase settled back down to her seat, feeling exhausted and shivering in fear at the magnitude of what she uncovered.. She wasn't sure WHAT she had uncovered, but it seemed important.

Three looked while flinching and asked in a small voice, "First Wootenant Weswee Widget?" She finished her lolly-pop with a crunch and asked, "Can I have another? I'm really, really hungry and sleepy. AND a hot dog! I really want a BUNCH of hot dogs! With everything!"

Chase while looking at at Widget, in a shaking voice, asked Hank, you scan her brain and tell me what is there?"

Hank was lost as to what was going on, but he felt it was terribly important. He sat Widget or Leslie or whoever she was down and ran the MRI over the skull. He looked and shrugged. "Good thing she didn't suffer a head trauma! I don't know what I'm looking at, but it isn't a human brain! It is half the volume of the human brain, with the same general structure , laid around a hexagonal crystal of carbon AND silicon! The main structure shows a lot of electrical activity. These structures look like chillers or heat exchangers of some kind to keep the processor cool."

He looked at Chase and shrugged as Widget sat back down, looking nauseous. She said, "I'm gonna hurl!" Hank held the waste can as she violently vomited. She shook and eventually stopped throwing up after a few minutes.

Hank looked in agitation at Chase and said, "I wish you would warn me when you pull tricks like this!"

Chase stroked Widget's head and said softly, "I don't know what they might do. They have people personalities in them, some how. I wish I knew what UTX did to make these processors. I'm not technical. I'm a software expert."

Hank looked intensely introspective and said, "UTX wants your skinny ass in a sling! They know you back and forth, up and down. Stay here. I'll be right back. I have an idea–I think."

Chase held her aching arm to her side and Three came over and hugged her. She didn't know why Three was so grabby, but at this moment, she didn't care.

Doctor Lassiter came back in and said, "We're going somewhere. A safe house. A patient of mine died last week after a long illness and he left me his house. You are moving in there. That is as random as it gets. I don't know if he has groceries or not, but the power is still on."

He treated her arm and discovered she did have a broken wrist. He set her wrist and treated her shoulder-blades as well. She was black and blue all over. He treated her as best as he could and they left the building into the back alley.

He brought around the gun-metal colored mini-van, that he had driven since medical school and they loaded into it. During the drive over to the hose he told them of, Three asked Chase ,"Is the doctor your daddy?"

Chase looked over her shoulder at Three and then sighed, "No he isn't. He was my mom's boyfriend. She died when I was little and he raised me. I do not get along with my Father. He's rich and doesn't understand me. He has stock in UTX and I don't know how to relate to him."

Chase then related to Hank what happened at Walt Disney World and what she had done. She was spent when she finished her story. She looked at her thumb-nail-watch and it's tiny LCD face. It read just past noon. It seemed a year ago when her day started.

After driving around for a while more, he pulled into the driveway of a two floor, ivy covered small house. He led them to the side-door and unlocked the kitchen door and let them in. The replicants descended on the pantry like a flock of locusts and ate everything they could find.

Widget found some chocolate pop-tart toaster treats and Three started in on a box of Fruit-Loops. Neko-Ney found pouched tuna and was in fish heaven. Widget called to Three from the refrigerator, "We have ham! Part of a chicken ,too!"

Neko-Ney rushed over to claim a piece of chicken, too.

Widget and Three ate like they were starving, while Hank stared at them amused and said to Chase, who was still looking around the house, "My God! You could lose an arm in this feeding frenzy! Don't they feed their robots at Disney World?"

Chase found the laundry room and bathroom. She said, while stripping in the laundry room, "Hank, they're damaged and need fuel to regenerate with! Their bio-systems go into overdrive when a certain level of damage is detected. I read that somewhere."

Three ran into the laundry with a plate of cold ham slices and toaster strudels and looked shyly at Chase and said eagerly, "I got some food for you! What'chu doin'?"

Chase found herself eating and telling Three to toss her clothes into the washer with her own. Chase figured she needed fuel as well as the replicants..

She had to peel Three's clothes off of her. They were stuck on her with her own blood. While doing that, Three laughed and fidgeted. Chase looked at her hard and asked, "Sweety–What is your name?"

"Oh, hi! I'm Gadget! Oh, you already know that! What comes next? Oh, you're still standing...let me build you a chair." Three giggled and twisted around acting cute. She continued to fidget about.

Her high spirits were infectious and Chase laughed and said, "You need a special name, so I christen you, 'FIDGET'! Three is so impersonal You little squirmy thing! "

'Fidget' squealed loudly and hugged Chase, giggling, "WHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE! I'm Fidget! Fidget, Fidget, Fidget! Thank you!"

Hank stuck his head in and jerked it back in surprise as Chase shouted at him, "HEY!"

'Ooops! Sorry, I thought I heard distress! Since you guys are getting along fabulously, I need to get back to the clinic. If patients could heal themselves, I'd be out of business. I am on the city payroll, y'know!"

Chase stuck her head around the corner and said to him, "Thanks for everything ,Hank. You're a better dad than my father ever was!" She smiled at him and blinked.

He patted her cheek and said softly, "Take care, keep away from the windows and I'll try to come by later if I can. They'll put a tail on me if they put the two of us together. Here...",he dug in his pocket and pulled out a wad of cash, and said, "It's only one hundred twenty dollars, but it's all I have on me. I'll be in contact when I can."

Chase squeezed his hand and teared up. In a breathless voice, she whispered, "Thank you!"

"Take care, punkin." He said it and ruffled her hair

He left the house and Neko-Ney locked the door after him. Neko went into the living room and jumped into the overstuffed chair across from the PTV, carrying her pouch of tuna and sat next to the sleeping Widget. Neko turned on the PTV and put her feet up to watch the news. She grew bored swiftly and got up to act cat-like and prowl around her new domicile.

She purred and rubbed her hands together with a look of glee on her face, and her cat-ears perked up and muttered, "Now that the 'castle' has a new 'queen' it is time for the 'queen' to survey the 'kingdom'. Maybe the attic has mice?" She looked at the sleeping Widget and snorted. "REAL mice!"

She slunk to the back stairs and pelted up the stairs with the sound of thunder.

Widget woke for a moment and glared in the direction that Neko-Ney went and muttered, "That darn cat!" She turned to the side and fell back asleep.

Chase went into the bathroom and showered. 'Fidget' kept trying to climb in with her. Chase pushed the mouse-girl out of the shower-stall and said, "Honey–you are being a pest! I won't be more than ten minutes! Please just keep yourself occupied or play for ten minutes...and stay out of trouble!"

Fidget nodded obediently and saluted sloppily and said, "M'kay! Sir!" She giggled and went about prowling about in the bathroom cabinets.

Chase went back to showering and muttered under her breath, "I think... I have been adopted. Lord, let me live through this."

A few moments later, Chase heard Fidget ,through the shower stall curtain, say to someone, "Hello. I'm dying my hair! I'm playing make-up artist!"

A strange woman's voice answered back, "Hello. Do you want to play with me?

Chase's heart skipped a beat. With fear squeezing her heart, she looked out past the shower and looked at a perfect beautiful brunette wearing a slave collar and a bondage harness and little else. Chase gave out a little shriek of panic and fell back against the back wall of the shower and slipping down the wall to the bottom of the stall.

The strange woman blinked without a change of expression and asked, "Hello, do you want to play with me?"

Chase scrambled around and looked at knee level from the stall. 'Fidget' had black hair dye in her hair and was looking out the bathroom door , which was now open, as suddenly a streak of pink, purple and black struck the woman from behind, smashing her onto the floor to land face down next to the shower stall.

Neko-ney flipped the woman over onto her back and drew back her right hand with claws fully extended , while digging the claws of her left hand into the throat of the woman and snarled at her, "Alrighty ya robo-bimbo! This is my place now! Be nice, or I'll pull yer kissy-face off and beat ya ta death with it!"

Neko-Ney's short pink hair was puffed up and her ears were flat to her head. Her right hand slowly traveled back as her eyes dilated wider and wider. Chase saw the cat-spirit behind Neko's eyes coming up to the fore and knew what the results would be if she didn't act..

She paused for a moment of terror and thought madly as to what to do. She looked at the cat-girl, while her heart was racing furiously. CAT-girl?

Chase flung open the shower and shouted, "NEKO! Stop THAT RIGHT NOW!" Neko flinched, but drew back her lips and hissed like a steam locomotive. She hadn't stopped staring at the woman cowering on the floor. Chase turned the shower-head on Neko-Ney and said, "BAD CAT! BAD! STOP IT NOW!"

Neko-Ney leapt backwards ten feet out of the bathroom with a loud, "MEYOWRL!" She looked angry and offended. Chase looked where the woman, unruffled by the savage take-down, climbed back to her feet and looked at Chase instead of Neko. Only an android simpleton would do that. Only something with NO survival instinct would turn it's shapely backside to something as visibly threatening as Neko-Ney.

Neko stood there with claws out and her tail moved her whole body as it went, "Thumpthumpthump!" against the walls of the small hallway outside the bathroom making a sound like a helicopter.

Chase thought quickly. She definitely didn't want to alienate Neko-Ney. She said placatingly to Neko, "Hey, good job on pouncing! You knocked the bejesus out of her!" Chase grabbed up a towel and tossed it to Neko who caught it off-handed with easy grace. "Now go dry off! Sorry about the shower thingee. You were losing control."

Neko's ears went up, she blinked and leapt downstairs.

Chase tried to swallow her heart back down into her chest and glared at the cyber-sex-doll. She drew back as if to punch it and looked at her fist and laughed, dropping it to her side.

Fidget looked at her strangely and asked, "What's so funny?"

Chase said thoughtfully, trying to remember a song lyric, " 'As if though a glass darkly, strange reflections show unexpected things'! Yeah, bo!"

She made a mental note to give the cat-girl a back rub later to make up for the water-treatment. Fidget looked at her curiously and Chase suddenly jumped and swore under her breath and came over to the mouse-girl. "You've made a real mess! Come here! " She finished undressing Fidget and glared hotly at the sex-doll and ,"You! Go stand in the hallway on one foot!"

"Yes, mistress!" The sex-doll did exactly that. Fidget giggled and pointed with a dirty finger as Chase dragged her into the shower and turned on the water again.

Fidget giggled and squealed as Chase scrubbed her clean. Chase was put off by the 'womanly' form that Fidget had. She certainly didn't look like a 'little' girl, more like a small woman Chase was just happy there were no mud-puddles around for her to get into. Whatever stuff that Fidget put into her hair didn't wash out completely. It curled up Fidget's hair and turned it mousey-brown. Chase laughed at the result.

The poofy fall of curls struck Chase as amusingly old-fashioned.

Chase pulled some shirts out of the laundry and put a long tee-shirt on Fidget and a long-button up one on herself. They went downstairs where Neko sat next to the sleeping Widget. Neko was watching the local news interrupt, which was showing "Siege at Disney World!" It was as biased and inaccurate as Chase had feared. She wasn't even mentioned.

After a few minutes of coverage, the station went back to some network romance-drama trash that bored Chase. She thought of Milo and wondered whether he survived and escaped. She hoped so.

She went and stretched out on the sofa, which was covered in denim and was over-stuffed. She was so tired and looked at the tavern-sized , fiber-optic 'Coca-Cola' sign, which cascaded color around and whirled.

She awoke with a start and it was dark outside. The sign was flashing and the PTV was talking sports. She was practically wearing the sleeping Fidget, who was sound asleep, and curled up in Chase's arms like a child. Widget was blissfully drooling unconscious on the arm of the recliner. Neko was across the room, staring at the flashing phone and looked at Chase.

Neko asked quietly, "Who'd want to call some dead guy? He might answer!"

Chase stared in fear at the dead man's telephone and wondered who it was who was calling a dead man at midnight.

Now:

The phone rang and Zoe reached for it. She punched the 'hands free' button and the image of some guy in his fifties or sixties came on. He was in some kind of vehicle and was dressed well. He had a beard and moustache and slicked back hair.

He said flatly, "I need to talk to Miriam Hackensack about her daughter."

Zoe was a defiant fourteen year old with pale skin and violet dyed hair and nails. She looked at the man hostilely and said, "What'ya gonna say 'bout me, Gen-omega, dude?"

He raised an eyebrow and looked sharply at her and said, "You aren't the ONLY daughter she had."

Zoe looked at the man and thought hard. This guy looked dangerous and her mom did not want to be disturbed.

In a coquettish voice, she asked, "You calling about Molly? She died. Years ago. What'd'ya want my mom for?"

"What do you know about Molly's death?" The man looked expectant and his question had a probing edge that she didn't like. He moved marginally toward the pick up and stared at her.

"Why do you want to know? Who are you?" Zoe felt nervous now and felt like calling for her mother.

"I have no time for you. Tell your mother, 'this concerns details of her daughter, Molly's death." He was insistent and commanding, like a cop or something.

"Hang on."

She put it on hold and ran to her mom's study. She was on the IAI and had three PTV's on different news channels and trying to watch all of them. Miriam looked at her daughter and said in irritation, "Zoe! I don't have time to listen about your.."

"Mom! It's the phone! Some gen-omega carrying on about Molly and how she died", Zoe got out, before Miriam jumped up, pushing her daughter out of the way and sprinting to the phone.

"MOM! What the fu– ", she trailed off seeing how upset her mom really was.

Miriam turned te image on and looked at the stern stranger. She said anxiously, "Who are you? What do you know about...."

"Mrs Hackensack! Your phone is tapped. Meet me at the railway tracks underneath the Demonbreun street bridge within thirty minutes. I will not wait." The phone went dead and Miriam looked stricken.

Ashen pale she called to Zoe and jerked on her jacket, "Zoe! I'm...going out for a while. Keep all the doors and windows locked. If I call–I'll use that goofy security question! You listening to me?'

Zoe nodded and asked in a casual tone, she didn't feel, "So...what is this about? What is going on? You've been weird since that crappy trip to Disney World with dumb-ass gen-alpha dude. I SAID he was.."

Miriam went out the door, and said ,"Good-bye, Zoe. Love you!"

The outer door closed while Zoe was talking and she trailed off into the silence of the now empty house and hugged herself against the quiet and said sullenly in a quiet voice, "Love you ,too, mom."

Miriam drove like mad from where she lived to the run down section of Nashville and rattled over the railway tracks under the Demonbreun street bridge and looked around. She saw the mystery man standing in a long dark raincoat.. She killed the lights and got out, her heart beating like it would burst. She ran up to him and asked, "Who are you? Where is the ...what do you know about my daughter's death?"

He said nothing. He pulled out a paper envelope and handed it to her. A car screeched up and he opened the door to get in. She grabbed his arm and asked passionately of him, "What am I to do with this? How can I get in contact with you? Where are you..."

He held up a hand and said intently, "Monday night...you saw something similar to Saturday afternoon. Read the contents by that light over there and stick it in your pocket. There is little time. It is Tuesday now. For the next couple of hours, at least. Good night, Professor Hackensack." He climbed into the car and it sped off with a whine of it's high-powered electric engine.

She looked around nervously and went over to the light in question and opened the letter. It read, "10:45 P.M. Outbound Murfreesboro road at the airport tunnel. Be there if you want truth. We want the same in turn."

She looked at her LCD thumb-nail and it read, '10:15 P.M.'. She sighed and got back in her car and drove out Murfreesboro road past the public housing projects and toward the Metropolitan Nashville Airport. The tunnels were almost a hundred years old and lit on the sides by glaring lemon-yellow flickering halogen bulbs. When she entered the outbound tunnel, she recognized the shark-like air-car she had seen in Macon, Georgia. It's strange darkly shark-like shape was a strange thing to see there. The mystery man was next to it.

She pulled up behind the Boeing air-car and got out. When she did, he motioned her over to the vehicle. She remarked , "With an air-car, you make good time."

He opened the back door and gestured for her to get in. She swallowed hard and did so. She moved in from the glaring lemon-yellow light of the tunnel, and into the darkness of the back of the vehicle. The door closed and it was very dim inside. She could tell that several other people were there other than just the man.

Someone held up a glowing PDA- LCD screen which read, "Please say the following in a natural voice and hold up your car-keys. Be silent afterwards, please: ' I understand and will be there in ninety minutes!' "

The door to the air-car opened again and she could tell a woman dressed similar to her was across from her. The message appeared on the screen again. She took a breath and said the wording as exact as possible. "I understand completely. I'll be there in ninety minutes."

The keys were taken by the other woman and Miriam was shocked to see a reasonable facsimile of 'Miriam Hackensack' get out , go over to her auto and get in her car and drive off. A moment later, the air-car engines roared into life and it taxied down the inside of the tunnel and leapt into the sky.

After a moment the lights came up and LadyMouse looked into Miriam's shocked eyes. She smiled and looked nervous as she said, "Hello, Miriam. We...need to talk. UTX is trying to kill my friends and apparently want my brain back and we need to ask you some questions."

Miriam asked, with her heart and voice breaking, "Are you my daughter, Molly?"

Gadget blinked and smiled,"That is a complicated question! I don't...know!"

Milo shouted., "Oh, Gadget! We have a little problem!" Milo's voice was nervous, edging toward panic. There are like these ...uh..four jet fighters making a bee-line at us!"

Gadget said, "Milo–activate the gosh-darn stealth-cloak!" Gadget reached over and squeezed Miriam's hand.

The vehicle started doing evasive maneuvers and Milo said tersely, "It IS on! I can't lose them!"

The cell-phone in the Boeing flashed ,"Incoming Call."

Milo activated it.

It was Maximilian Matamoros. He smiled at them and said simply, "Good evening, all. My fighters are targeting you. You choices are these. Set course for the Yucatan, surrender immediately, or be shot down immediately. Mouse-girl...she is your mother. You might sacrifice anyone else, but would you sacrifice your own mother?"

They looked at each other and Gadget sweated. Mister Matamoros looked at his finger-nails and looked up. He said, "The fate of the world is more important than you. I give you ten seconds to decide your fate. I have no more time to waste on this."

Milo asked, "What do you want to do Gadget?"

She looked at the count-down clock and watched the seconds countdown toward zero.

–To be Continued –


	4. The Smouldering Mirror of Yesterday

Chapter 4:

The Smouldering Mirror of Yesterday

Gadget shook inside as Matamoros' countdown clock ticked down. The sweat poured down her worried face as she looked from 'her mother', Miriam, to the disguised Larry Williams back the helplessly frightened Milo. Larry seemed the calmest, and most sinister looking with his false beard and moustache. He waved a wand over Miriam, then nodded sharply at her.

"We give up! We surrender! Look, you psycho! I don't like my friends involved in this. You guarantee not to harm them and I'll surrender." Gadget bit the words off with a defeated sound to her voice.

"You all surrender or there is no deal. My dear, 'Gadget'–your secrets cannot have anyone running around to speak of them. You all will be my guests in the Yucatan Replication Facility, where you will all have modifications to your speech centers, so you won't be able to speak of Gadget's little secret again. You don't have to agree! Perhaps Mrs. Hackensack's OTHER daughter would be better suited to play the part?" He sounded so calm and reasonable, as if he were asking about desert after a power-lunch, that Miriam didn't react at first.

She grimaced at Maximilian and shouted, "Stay away from my little girl! You megalomaniac!"

He frowned and chided Miriam, "Now ,now! No name calling! I've been perfectly reasonable up to now, and you are out of options. Set down at the air-port at Hangar 27, or be destroyed."

Gadget, still leaning over Milo's right shoulder, said urgently, "Alright! We're setting down! Don't fire."

Milo started to say, "Gadget, we can't do that!" She terminated the transmission and cut off the view-phone.

Larry snapped off, "Her bra's bugged!. It sending out the strongest signal. Her shoes are too, but not powerful enough to penetrate the electronic counter-measures of this car!"

Gadget said sharply to all, "Tiffany plan 'B' in effect! We fight over the controls, clip a wire and 'crash' into an underground parking structure and you lot bail out and get picked up by Tiffany. I keep Miriam's bra and shoes on board and take them on a wild ride, then dump them. MIRIAM! You got all that? "

Miriam was grinning and working on her bra. "Got it! Got IT! Damn thing!" She glared at Larry and shouted," Mr. Mysterious! Grab the shoes!" She struggled for a brief, arm-twisting moment and pulled out her bra, and went, "Viola! For my next trick..."

Gadget yelled at her, "You'll hang on!"

Gadget dipped the nose down into a dive toward the airport parking structure. Miriam shrieked and grabbed a hand-hold. The air-car bobbed and wavered in a convincing dance toward disaster. Milo knew it was all staged, but his stomach still was queasy, when Gadget did a barrel-roll, while diving. Larry and Miriam gave out cries of alarm during a moment of free-fall. Gadget kept her hands on the controls, even if her feet left the carpeting a time or two. The pursuing craft fell back to give the 'ailing' craft room.

Gadget spotted the wire they had picked out, earlier in the evening, and rammed it with the nose of the craft. It severed cleanly and Gadget heeled the craft over almost sideways and shot it into the entrance of the underground parking structure, past the incurious eyes of an UTX 3483 Attendant Servo-mech in the attendant's shack. She dropped a flare from the tail of the Boeing air-car and brought the air-car to a bumpy landing that had seemed to have scraped most of the paint off. All the doors opened on the craft as Tiffany in her faux 'Miriam Hackensack' outfit rushed up. The flare burned with eye-searing light and sent up a huge cloud of grey smoke to the ceiling beams.

She jerked up her flash-light as the overloaded lights went out. Gadget yelled from inside the Boeing craft, "Last stop! Everybody out!"

Milo jumped out the pilot's door, running to a vehicle parked nearby and Gadget took his seat and strapped in. Larry handed her a plastic shopping bag with Miriam's broadcasting bra and shoes in it. Miriam jumped out onto the concrete barefoot, and took off toward the beckoning Tiffany. Larry jumped out the passenger-side door as Milo drove up their escape vehicle, a heavily built high-performance electric SUV. Larry piled into the rear as the two women took the center seat-row.

Milo had the SUV roar up the exit ramp as the emergency power flickered to come on. The emergency lights showed the air-car spinning about on the top level of the underground parking structure, as the silvery SUV sped out onto the surface roads.

A couple of people , deplaning from an trans-sonic rocket-plane from Australia, tried for their cars on the top level. One reached his red sports-car and rocketed up the exit after the silvery SUV.. A female, young executive-type jumped back from the spinning air-car as Gadget dished in the side of a pearl-colored stream-lined station-wagon and straightened out the engine-pods on the Boeing and jetted up the entrance ramp and back into the darkened skies of the Nashville night.

The young executive woman screamed a string of curses and invectives after the retreating air-car and shook her fist mightily looking at the damage to her station-wagon.

Gadget said , "Oops! Sorry! Golly, made it look a little to real, Eehhhh!" She cut to the right to avoid the control tower and spotted the four pursuers circling the airport. There were convening together to intercept her.

She headed south-east and upwards. They matched the course precisely and matched her move for move. Two of them were in the four o'clock low position and the other two were in the eight o'clock high position. They stayed locked in those positions. She swerved and swooped around and still couldn't lose them. She caught a glimpse of them from the rear-facing camera.

They were the same kind of Boeing air-car she was in ,except for one thing. Each of the other four air-cars carried mini-missile racks of four missiles each! She knew that she was in deep, deep trouble, now. She figured they were probably piloted by androids or replicants.. Their artificial brains could pull more gravities of acceleration then her human brain could stand. She had to come to come up with a plan and quick. The alarm showing that one of them had a missile-lock on her, startled her into frantic action.

She dove and banked as the mini-missile was launched from one of the bogeys at the eight o'clock high position. Riding a tail of star-hot flame, the Starfire missle shot across the intervening space and exploded next to the Boeing air-car. The vehicle was slammed by the shock-wave of shrapnel that perforated the passenger-side of the air-car. The air-car spun down-ward as red lights came on, lighting up the console. Those lights, in combination with the audible alarm told her that she had just lost her left rear engine.

Gadget slowed the vehicle and tried to open the passenger door to no avail. The servo connections had been severed by the first hit. She looked at the plastic bag in the passenger seat and realized she couldn't get rid of the bugs locking the missiles onto the vehicle. The pilot-side door came open with a rush of wind and a roaring sound as the loud keening of the missile-lock tone came on.

She had one insane option open to her, and she took it.. She hit the five-point harness emergency release and leapt out into the two hundred mile-per-hour wind as the missile rocketed into the cabin of the air-car from above.

She curled into a ball as the Boeing air-car exploded into a flaming cloud of metal and plastic parts that enveloped her briefly in a bruising, fiery impact and was gone. She fell at over two hundred mile per hour sideways and was approaching terminal velocity downwards as well. She was still wearing the LadyMouse armor and jump-jets. She had a ceiling of less than two thousand feet of jumps left on those jets and she was several thousand feet in the air.

Gadget looked down in horror as she realized she was dropping over miles of black water over the lake her internal GPS-locator told her was J. Percy Priest Lake. The only facts she needed to know that she couldn't avoid it, it was deeper the she was tall and that she was not an effective swimmer.

Gadget had seconds to think about how she would sink like a rock into it's dark depths She flattened herself to ride the air currents as much as possible and monitored her position with her inbuilt Global-Positioning-System antenna. She never really thought about her cybernetic systems, but she was happy with this addition. It told her to within one meter where on the surface of the Earth she was. At fifteen hundred feet (or four hundred fifty-four meters) of altitude, she adopted a forty-five degree forward pitch and started her deceleration burn. It kept her forward speed up and she hoped it was enough to make land-fall.

At least this way, she figured, she would splash down three hundred feet short of land instead of half-a-mile. As she got closer, she maneuvered her jets to get near a sailboat, sitting at anchor near a marina. She would land fifty feet short of it, from her calculations.

Gadget's calculations were off by fifty feet short. She hit the water in a dive, about a hundred feet short of the sailboat, traveling at about a hundred miles an hour. She speared through the surface at an angle in a head-first dive, striking the water with her hands. Half a second later, she struck the anchor-chain of the sail-boat and was knocked cold. If her figures had been accurate, she would have been killed instantly. Hopelessly entangled in the anchor-chain, the anchor pulled her down into the darkness of the abyss.

She stood in a powder-blue jump-suit, but her reflection was a naked Gadget Hackwrench. She looked around. Ramos and Maximilian Matamoros were there. They were dressed in powder-blue jump-suits as well. It was some kind of ancient Meso-American temple. Toltec or Olmec, she wasn't sure. The room was old, very old. At least thousands of years old.

The mirror had mist or smoke rising from it and it didn't reflect what was before it. Another Gadget-unit was there and she reflected a human gymnastic woman with fine bones. Ramos' reflection looked more muscular with a smaller head. Maximilian's reflection looked teen-aged and like a tough hood with tattoos. Gadget looked like herself, but naked.

"You need to open the way for us. Only a rare person can open the Tezcatlipoca."

Gadget flailed back to wakefulness. She couldn't remember where she was and how she had gotten there. Her lungs were filled with cold heavy water and she was drowning. She had heard that drowning was peaceful, but she wasn't at peace. She pulled herself up the chain as quickly as she could. There was a light probing the water as she broke the surface. The light dimmed as she gushed water through her nose and mouth. She tried to scream and instead mewled in a gurgling voice and went limp with a splash, and started sinking back into the cold dark water.

The pool was a huge hexagon thirty feet across and glowed with white-hot light. The heat roiled and poured up from it in thick waves of rippling distortion. There were mysterious alien glyphs around the edge of the pool. The walls were greenish-blue and looked like living wet moss. The was some kind of half-melted looking cat-walk above the pool and drifting pods of amber glass drifted by like bubbles of helium filled plastic. She sat there looking at the fiery pool in fear. She shook and fretted.

Ramos sneered and said, "Weak girl!"

Matamoros frowned at him and said, "She is the only the fifth person ever to survive the river to the underworld. That is why we need her. Replicants don't have the emotional strength."

Gadget looked over in horror at the smoldering bones of the other Gadget-unit and felt sick. She held some type of hand-gun with a three-finger grip. It was smooth and had the cold feel of a solid piece of volcanic basalt.

She pulled it up and pointed it at Ramos and he reached over and took it from her. Gadget felt physically ill at his touch. Maximilian patted her on the head and said, "You did very well, my girl. A weapon, this time! Very good!"

Gadget spoke in a flat tone, "My master, the weapon is discharged. I could not find any charger, or any way of recharging it. It is some kind of particle weapon. It fires a beam that has an affecting charge that causes a change in matter." Her voice failed as another girl came in. She was tall and willowy and had four arms.

Her long red hair was shoulder-length and she was lovely. She said to Matamoros, "My master. I'm ready to spell the mouse. I'm sure to penetrate to the next room."

She walked into the pool of white fire and burst into white flame. She sank into the pool of liquid metal as her flesh burned away. She turned and kissed Gadget with burning lips as the flaming fluid of the pool rushed up and filled her mouth and lungs with incandescent fire.

Gadget wrenched her head away and coughed up immeasurable amounts of water. She gagged and vomited up water and wept as well. She coughed and coughed raggedly She was barely aware that there was two people beside her. The young woman was snippy and derisive. The young man is the one who performed rescue-breathing on her, she was sure.

"Th-thank-you", Gadget hacked for a moment and gasped out, "for saving my bacon. G-gosh! I thought for sure I was dead meat." She kept coughing face down.

"Did you fall from that exploding air-car?" He was young and had short sandy hair.

Gadget didn't have to play dumb and said asked, "What? I was under-water! What blew up? What did you see?" She choked and gagged and coughed some more. Her head was ringing like a gong and it was hard to pay attention to him.

"An air-car exploded", he said and pointed out, over the lake. "Something went,'KERSPLASH' right over there." He pointed over by the front of the boat. "Something hit the anchor-chain, and you were all tangled -up in the chain....so..."

She thought for a moment, coughing and noticed she was dripping blood from her head "Hey, What? I'm bleeding ,too"

"Lindy, grab a tee-shirt, love", The young man said pleading. The girl angrily went below-deck for a moment and came back with a rolled-up white tee-shirt. She tossed it to the young sandy-haired man, and went over and sat on the railing.

The angry girl said, "I don't see why you're fussing on that thing, anyway, Jeffy. I mean...it's just one of the robot -things, isn't it?"

Gadget pressed the Tee-shirt to her brow and mopped up the trickle of blood at her hair-line. Gadget looked sternly at 'Lindy' and tried not to glare. Gadget bit off , "I am a cyborg. I have a human brain in a cyborg flesh body. From a medical condition...I picked this form for the sensory capabilities and the prehensile tail. I'm lucky, I have an inbuilt crash-helmet." Which apparently had saved her life. The memory recorder was having a momentary glitch, and wouldn't give her a playback until it finished a diagnostic and repair cycle. She couldn't remember why she was underwater. She had almost drown. She came up with the best she could.

In a hoarse voice, feeling nauseous, Gadget lied, "My name is Molly, Pleased to meet you. Thank you, you two, for saving my life." She thought frantically and said wonderingly, "Ah..maybe it was an engine pod. That...uh...struck your line. I didn't see it. Something tore my mask off and got rid of my air-supply. If the turbines exploded after it hit the water, I'm just lucky to be alive." She felt sick from lying and using the 'Molly' name. Gadget certainly didn't feel like a 'Molly'. In fact–she didn't feel like her self at all. Her brain hurt and her skull pounded like a drum. She felt impaired and dizzy. She ran an internal diagnosis. It came back 'damaged processor–seek repair immediately!' She wished she knew what that meant applied to a live brain.

The girl was shocked, then apologetic. "OH my GOD! That is just awful! I'm sorry to confuse you with a robot, but you don't look....I mean....really....you must get confused with them all the time. Where's your diving partner? Do you need a para-medic?"

"Don't call anyone! I mean....I was diving alone. It was stupid. I could get fined for this! I'm fine...just a little water-logged is all! Just a little cut and a lung full of water. Please don't tell anyone I was here! My mom would spaz!" Gadget pleaded passionately and the young man and young woman nodded.

Gadget remembered lifting off from the parking garage, then a curious nothing.

Jeffy said, "We'll let you off at The Cook Marina, over there." Jeffy jerked a thumb at the boat-dock. He laughed gently and said, "Lindy's mom is a spaz, too. She''ll have a fit knowing a piece of 'Ooooooooh-scarey' air-car hit the water a good hundred yards away!"

Lindy retorted, "My mom is NOT a spaz. Alright maybe a little. Oh-kay....she is a total spaz-opolis complete with 'burbs'!" They both laughed and Gadget threw in a couple of pained chortles between coughs.

Gadget nodded and hung over the railing for a moment trying to get gravity to assist her in coughing up more water. Gadget felt like she coughed up a few more liters of water, but it was only a few spoon-fulls. Lindy came over and patted her on the back hard. Gadget was still coughing when Jeffy pulled the boat into the docking slip and tied it off.

He looked at Gadget and asked, "I can still get a paramedic, if you want one."

She held up a hand and lied some more, "Hey, my boss would fire me if I caused any more trouble. Don't tell anyone you saw me." She clambered up onto the marina dock and waved at them, and said, "Thanks again, you two! I have to go. My mom is probably going to 'spaz' " Gadget grinned at them. "She's been worried about me too much lately anyway!"

"Bye, Molly! You all take care now!" Jeffy called after her as she walked calmly away ,still occasionally coughing up the odd bit of water. She couldn't help but notice the rescue vehicles further out on the lake and the police , fire, and air-rescue ambulances combing the area over the lake miles away with search-lights. Something bad had happened there.

She replayed the memory recorder. It was a device that held the past twenty-four hours, like a digital black-box recorder. Most robots had them and all replicants had them in case of disaster or mishap. She found out that she had just had a mishap.

The images of Matamoros were in her brain, not in the memory recorder. The shooting down of the air-car was in the memory recorder, but not in her brain. She was out of touch for fifteen minutes since the air-car was lost. She looked around her. Gadget knew she had to call the others.

She couldn't use her inbuilt cell-phone, that would give away everything because of it's digital stamp giving sender name and location. She looked for a pay-phone, and found one after about another fifteen minutes of searching, outside a rundown looking convenience store with a pink flashing 'OPEN 24 HOURS' sign in front. She hoped everything else was going according to plan.

She dialed Larry's cell-phone number. After three rings it answered. It flashed an obligatory sign, 'No Picture' and showed no picture as Tiffany's voice came out of the receiver shocked as she exclaimed, "Gadget! You're all wet! What happened?"

Gadget bit back tears and said simply, "They shot me down. I'm at the Cook Marina off of Stewart's Ferry Pike in south-east Nashville. I 'm half-drowned and think I might have a concussion, but I am alright otherwise. I was too slow and sloppy in implementing the plan. I lost the air-car." Her voice broke as her head dropped and she tearfully sobbed, "I'm sorry. I messed up. I'm so-so-sorry!"

Tiffany said, "It's all right, punkin! You did your best. You're an amateur and we're up against pro's on this. In the good news front, we got Zoe, Miriam's ...uh...other daughter! We're on the way. Milo said don't draw attention, and Larry said lay low and hang on.."

Gadget sniffed and said softly, "Thanks. I'm at the Moscerdali Deli."

Tiffany said, "It'll be twenty minutes on the surface roads. Just hang on. We're on the way."

Gadget nodded and said, "I'll be waiting."

She looked around and saw several pairs of curious eyes looking at her from a family where a five-year-old was asking about the mouse-lady, to an older black woman asking her husband if that mouse-girl was a Playa Maya fan?

So much for staying out of sight.

Gadget rolled her eyes and wandered over to the lit grassy area where some picnic tables and benches were at.

She went over to a park bench and sat down, still dripping water. Her hair was wet and her skull was pounding. She held the rolled tee-shirt to her scalp to get the head-wound to stop bleeding. She had lost the only link they had to Chase and Unit-One and Three. Gadget worried about them all, especially Three. Were they renamed Widget and Fidget, now? She felt so out of it.

If they needed help and called the air-car....there was no air-car, now. Because she wasn't fast enough. She wasn't good enough to keep them alive. She knew everyone was depending on her and she failed them all. Gadget dropped her head in shame and the tears spilled out of her eyes to add to the dripping water already falling off of her. Gadget punched the seat of the bench angrily and breathed raggedly. She kept going back to her 'dreams' or 'visions' she had while fighting for her life. What did they mean? Dale-One had said 'Fidget' knew an alien language. WHAT alien language? The alien language around the well of fire? Her mind was a confused mess.

Gadget was consumed in her feelings of confusion and misery, when the silvery SUV driven by Milo, pulled up next to where she was sitting. She didn't want to get in and talk with her 'mother'. The thought terrified her silly, and made her nauseous with worry. She missed the programmed imperatives. She kept asking herself, 'What would Gadget do?' The answer was less clear now Gadget scrambled in her mind to figure out what to do and was paralyzed by the heart-ache of humanity.

Miriam got out of the back-seat and came over to Gadget. Miriam put a hand on Gadget's shoulder and said quietly, "We need to go, sweety."

Gadget started in fright and stared at Miriam in terror and despair. That look etched itself upon Miriam's soul. The look of naked turmoil was almost more than she could take. Miriam sat down next to Gadget and stroked her wet hair. Gadget shook from the tremendous emotional gale within her

Gadget said in a strained calm tone, "You should know, I am extraordinarily depressed! I lost the air-car. We're stranded. I messed up." Tears started to form again as Miriam hugged Gadget. Gadget sang in a whisper, " '...leading you down into my core, where I've become so numb. Without a soul, my spirit is sleeping somewhere cold, until you find it there and lead it back...home.' "

Miriam jerked Gadget back and stared into her huge dilated blue eyes and trembled herself. "That was Molly's favorite Playa Maya song. It was originally from an old band from the turn of the century, named Evanescence, or something like that. Are you Molly?"

"Yes–No. Maybe. Gosh, I don't really know. Who is 'Playa Maya'? I'm 'lost in my own mind' and had a head-wound and might be delirious right now." Gadget blinked and looked confused. "Seeing you...I just sort of heard the song. I'm...a little disoriented."

Miriam stood up and guided Gadget into the car, saying in a comforting tone, "Come with us and we'll take care of you. You've been through a lot and you need a rest.."

She pushed Gadget into the car, to sit next to Zoe. Zoe complained, "Eww! MOM, the rat-lady is soaking wet! Bleah!"

"Zoe, shut up! Be nice! For once!" Miriam said harsher than she meant to, but was stressed out and had one crisis more than she could handle well. Miriam slipped inside, after Gadget , and buckled up as Milo backed out nice and slow.

They pulled out and Tiffany said from the front passenger seat, "Should Milo be driving?"

Larry shook his head and said to Milo, "Milo, you need to pull over and change drivers."

He nodded and pulled over as Tiffany took the wheel and Larry moved up next to her. Milo grabbed the back-seat and got out the first-aid pack, while they got back on the road. Gadget tilted her seat back a little and Milo put a cold compress on her fore-head, at the scalp-line. Gadget looked back and forth from the kind and caring Miriam to the miserable and resentful Zoe.

"Gadget, I need to run a diagnostic on you., to see what's what in your head." Milo thought it might be a waste of time, but he was worried and if her brain was damaged or bruised, he would be able to see 'how' from the Direct Neural Interface plug in the base of her skull. At least the 'doctored' version of it telling him she's a replicant, and her Doorway-CPU is doing this-that-and-the-other-thing.

Gadget nodded and went, "Ow. Alright–no nodding! So...you must be Zoe? Hi! I'm Gadget, pleased to meet you!" Gadget forced a smile, though she didn't feel it and offered a hand to Zoe.

Zoe took it with disdain and sneered at her. "I don't know what you are–but you are NOT my sister! You aren't!"

"Gosh, I hope I'm not related to you , too, you unpleasant brat!" Gadget bit back uncharacteristically , taking her hand back and wanting to slap Zoe silly.

Miriam snapped at both of them, "GIRLS! Shut the hell up! Zoe! I said be nice! And you, little miss mouse! Do not respond kind for kind! Do you two understand?"

Zoe and Gadget glared at each other and crossed their arms and said in unison, "Yes, mother!"

Zoe looked in shock at Gadget, who pitched forward and looked green. Larry, who was ready for it, waved a plastic bag in front of Gadget's ill-expressioned face. She snatched it and had a series of dry heaves into the sack. Miriam looked alarmed and concerned. She looked at Milo, who had gotten out the replicant field diagnostic unit.

Milo shrugged and said with a strangely happy tone, "Physical reaction to the aversion response. I guess she really is your daughter to react that strongly to a sub-conscious lapse. I still have trouble seeing her as human. Until now."

Zoe watched with cool distaste and glanced over at Milo and commented coldly, "Dude, you are all heart!"

Milo glared at Zoe and Miriam stroked Gadget's back until she stopped heaving. She sank back into the seat and gulped air. Larry got out a soda from the cooler and passed it back to Gadget, who gratefully sipped it to get the taste of vomit out of her mouth.

Gadget looked sheepishly at Miriam and said chagrined , "Sorry about that. I never had an emotional reaction like that! At least...not since the first time I saw you on that ride in Walt Disney World. Golly, that was nasty. Sorry....mother."

She looked expectantly toward her barf-bag, but no further heaving came forth. She felt ill, but nothing happened. Gadget's skull throbbed and she was starting to feel a little more disoriented. She sighed as Milo cleared the hair from the DNI-UTC plug at the base of her skull. The Direct Neural Interface-Universal Translator Connector plug was an ultimate out-growth of the Doorway processor technology. He carefully jacked into her skull and activated the diagnostic programs to scan her brain. He fed in a likely passcode from the list he had been given from Doctor Fairweather and it showed her real human brain on the monitor. It showed mild bruising typical of many minor head trauma.

Milo felt ill. She was injured and all he had was the Instant Access Internet to help. He would have preferred a real doctor to aid her.

Milo jacked his palm-top into the World Wifi Web and looked up head trauma and concussions under his hacker alias. He was sure that no one had cracked this alias. If they had, it would only be a second's down-load to trace. Milo's black-ice showed no trace backs to him, so he read the glowing folding screen quickly in peace. He was not pleased by what he read.

Milo said, "We should put this off. Gadget has a grade three concussion. She lost consciousness for a moment. Her short term memory doesn't jibe with the memory recorder in her skull. We can't let her sleep for a day. Her brain will start swelling due to the injury and she will feel increasingly drowsy and confused. If she falls asleep–we may not wake her up outside of a hospital."

Milo said to Gadget , "You got the gist of that Gadj? I can't tell how affected you are. You have a severe headache, but both pupils are equal and reactive. You are restless, agitated, and irritable. You threw up. Those are symptoms of head trauma, too. I can't tell if they are part of the aversion thing, emotional upheaval or symptoms of the head trauma."

Gadget teared up again and sighed, "Golly, Milo. Is all the news this bad?"

He stroked her cheek from behind, and said softly, "No. The best news of all is that you are still alive. We can get a new air-car, but we CAN'T get you a new brain. Don't let it bother you. Out of control emotions is also a symptom of head trauma, too."

She gripped his hand and smiling tightly, wept on it, saying, "Oh, I'm so glad. That...you don't hate me. For losing the air-car I mean. Sorry. I'm a little out of it."

He squeezed back and rubbed the side of her face and said affirmingly, "I'd have died. You just end up beat-up. There is a big difference between dead and beat up."

Gadget nodded She began in a sleepy voice, "While I was drowning at the bottom of Percy Priest Lake, I had the wildest, weird dream. It involved Maximilian Matamoros and alien artifacts and a smoking mirror. Could that be a memory?"

Tiffany said sternly, "Gadget, tell us every detail you remember of it, alright?"

Miriam said, "She needs to rest."

Tiffany shot back, "Bullshit! She needs to talk! Keep her awake. Don't let her drift off!" Tiffany's eyes seared Miriam's with unsaid emotion. "It might be her life! Keep her talking, DAMMIT!"

Milo was surprised at Tiffany's hard-as-diamonds words and realized there might be more to her than he first thought. He had just dismissed her as a retired grand-motherly type. He realized that Larry calling her 'Diamond' might have two meanings. He thought he was seeing the other meaning of it was coming out.

Miriam said urgently to Gadget, "Molly spoke once of 'the smoking mirror of Tezcatlipoca'. Is that it?"

Gadget blinked and shrugged. "Maybe. I don't know. Maybe it was just a dream. It didn't make sense. It doesn't make sense!"

Then:

Neko-Ney complained, "It doesn't make sense! Why would anyone call at this hour?"

Chase woke up the resting Fidget, who was still mostly asleep, when Chase man-handled her over onto her side on the sofa. Fidget protested in her sleep at being moved, but didn't really stir to full wakefullness. Fidget curled up when Chase was clear of her. Chase turned on a table lamp with a small grape-cluster of bulbs and answered the veiw-phone.

Chase tried not to yawn in the face of the burly nurse from Doctor Lassiter's office, when she picked up. " 'Lo, Maggie!" Chase yawned louder and wider, trying not to yawn at all. Her joints cracked and popped as Maggie had a particularly dour look on her face.

Maggie said, "Hank....Doctor Lassiter was picked up for questioning in your disappearance by the Orlando Police."

Chase looked alarmed and asked with quiet urgency, "What's the situation?"

Maggie looked darkly at Chase and she said, "I don't know. He said: You came by, had replicants with you, and he gave you money. He didn't say if you were in trouble or not. I know you looked awful. Hell–I saw you! You looked scared to death. The homeless outside didn't see anything about anybody. As usual."

Maggie looked worried and said tersely, "The cops said that they might charge him with accessory after the fact. Fact of what? I been watching the news all day. The little mouse girls didn't look homicidal. You aren't a 'drug-dealer' no matter what the news clods say! What in hell is going on?"

"Maggie, It's UTX. They are white-washing their involvement in something hideous! This scandal could bring 'em down! When billions lay on the line...guess whose head is on the chopping block?" Chase put a thumb to her throat and drew it across it with a , "K-k-k-k-k-k" sound.

Maggie rolled her eyes and said, "Holy shit, girl, this is bad! You need to go to the government, or press or somebody!"

Chase watched a local political ad for a councilman-elect, paid for the UTX political action committee. She frowned and thought back on the scandal of the last presidential election and how some accused the incumbent, President Howe, had rigged the election with the help of UTX. He was accused of not being just the first Independent party president, but the first UTX party President, ever.

Chase looked at Maggie and asked sadly, "Whose government? UTX practically runs the U.S. now. Where do I go?"

Maggie looked determined, and said, "Somebody in the government is honest. They aren't all rat-bags! You just have to find them. I don't know any...but they must exist! I gotta go, hon. You take care, Chase, and Lord bless you."

"Thanks, Maggie. Bye", she said and rang off.

The PTV news was talking about the Galloway comet, due to pass behind the Earth in six months. Some End-of-the-World sect were saying it was going to be another LeFrene comet and the world would end from another plague. The commentator was quick to point out that the comet would pass BEHIND the Earth so nothing other than the moon would pass through the comet's tail. In 2067 , the Earth passed through the tail of the LeFrene comet. In 2068 the first of the plague cases were reported.

After a moment of thought , she turned off the light and the PTV. She yawned again and went over to the sofa. She laid back down and curled up around Fidget. Neko-Ney jumped up onto the back of the over-stuffed sofa and draped herself over the back so one foot and one hand were on Chase. Neko-Ney was asleep almost immediately.

Fidget opened her huge eyes and looked up into Chase's worried face. "Worried?"

Chase whispered back, "No, Hank has friends in the ACLU and won't be in long. Now go back to sleep, you little goofball!"

Fidget gave a little giggle and did just that, hugging Chase. In the sleepy quiet of the night, Chase looked at her charges and asked quietly, "Who are you three really? WHAT are you?"

No one answered back. Save one.

"Sleepy. Shut up", complained Fidget and snuggled up to Chase.

Chase woke to the smell of frying bacon and eggs, and coffee. She was sitting upright, holding an equally salivating Fidget on her lap. Widget puled her head up and sniffed the air, eyes closed .

Widget went ,"AH! Coffee!"

Neko-Ney 'tsked' from the kitchen and said, "Ah, ya bunch of lazy bums! I had to lift the money from Chase's pocket, walk down to the grocery-store, chase some squirrels along the way , and come all the way back myself! I almost wandered off! BUT! I bought bacon instead! And tuna-fish! And omelet parts which I put together! It's just marvelous being me! I'm a cat, and cats rule! If you want breakfast, you must say, 'Cats Rule!' "

In the other room, the salivating trio looked at each other for a fraction of a second before shouting, "CATS RULE", and tearing at full speed into the kitchen!

Neko had obviously appointed herself boss of the kitchen and cooked up a ton of food for the wounded and they were appreciative. Widget loaded up on ham and cheese omelette and a huge mug of hot coffee. Fidget wolfed down two different omelettes, bacon, a liter of milk and split a cantaloupe with Chase. Chase ate half a cantaloupe, hashbrowns, an omelette, several bacon strips and several cups of coffee.

Neko-Ney watched in humourous amazement. When the eating slowed, she joked, "Hey, the natives are restless! Listen to the pounding of those gums! You guys! Next time, I'll just shoot a buffalo and we'll bar-be-que it? Oh-kay?"

Chase pulled Neko over into a huge hug, that Widget and Fidget joined into as well. Chase burped loudly and everyone giggled. Chase said to Neko, "...And I meant that from the bottom of my heart, too!"

Fidget looked at Chase and asked, "What do we do now?"

Chase went blank. They all looked to her for guidance. She thought and went back over to the sofa. She looked at them and she flexed her fingers through the cast on her arm.

"Fidget, Widget? How healed are you?"

Fidget and Widget went diagnostic for several moments while Neko-Ney preened.

"They couldn't hit me! I was fast like a....pink panther!" Neko bragged, rocking back and forth on her feet.

Chase sighed and muttered, "'Pink panthers NEVER exsisted!"

Neko grinned and said smartly, "Yep! So fast nobody saw even one of them!"

Widget said, "I'll be back to full bio-power in a day, eating like I did this morning. My body power is down to seventeen units."

Fidget said glumly with a finger in her mouth, "It'll be two days for me! I'm at thirty-eight body power."

Chase said thoughtfully, "We keep out of sight and recover from our wounds. We take stock of our situation and see what we have to work with in this house. We need to look through the whole place for food, supplies, weapons, wearable clothes, and stuff like that."

They split into teams of two to search the house for usable things. Chase and Fidget were excited to find a cache of pistols in some fake book jackets, until Widget pointed out that the pistols were all 9mm. Chase didn't understand.

Widget sighed and tried again. "Look, Chase– these are mostly obsolete. Look at this 9mm Sig-Sauer P210. It has the same bullet -for-bullet damage as the 4mm projectiles of today. The difference is feel in shooting and magazine size. You can carry four times as much ammo in a modern pistol, and a modern pistol doesn't recoil nearly as much. Also this old ammo will not puncture modern anti-ballistic armor! Do you understand, Chase? Fidget?"

Fidget looked at Widget with her mouth open and said, "WOW. You sure know about shooting people! How do you know so much about guns?"

Chase shrugged and said, "It's free guns! Geez! I can't help that there old!. Can you shoot somebody unarmored with them?"

Widget nodded and sighed, "Free guns. Yeah. You can shoot unarmored targets with them. They are lethal and will kill people if you shoot them. Most of the people coming after us would be armored. Having been shot, I have a vested interest in knowing about guns and shooting! Look–if ANY of you have to shoot ANYBODY with one of these pistols, aim for the face or the armpit or thigh. Assume if somebody drops from being shot from one of these weapons, they might get up and get you."

She looked strongly at Fidget and said sternly, "Even old-fashion–these ARE NOT toys! Treat them like they can kill you! They can."

Fidget frowned and fidgeted. She said fitfully, "They scare me! I got shot more than you! It makes me sick to think about shooting people.! How do you do it.?"

Widget shot back a long, stern series of 'squeak mail' at Fidget. Fidget and Neko-Ney waded into it and they argued for several minutes while Chase rolled her eyes and waited for the language to switch back to English, so she could keep up.

Finally, Widget looking very serious, said something that made Fidget burst into tears and run to the bathroom and Neko-Ney nodded in agreement sadly.

Chase exclaimed, "What in HELL, was that about?" She pointed after Fidget and glared at Widget.

Widget glared back and said in a low voice to Chase, "We speak like this as a courtesy to you. Fidget is our weakest link. We are willing to die for her. I was trying to impress upon her, she has to be willing to kill to save herself–or you! Her little-girl-lost act will NOT impress our enemies! They would shoot her to death and not even blink. UTX is waging war upon us! We are out-gunned, out-numbered, and out-matched. WE are fighting for survival. Those are the facts. PERIOD! I'm being harsh, because you are important to my survival. Do YOU understand? This is no game."

Chase was red-faced and felt ashamed for having a good breakfast. Chase swallowed and nodded. Somehow...she had lost control of the group to Widget and she wasn't sure when or how.

Neko-Ney interjected, "Hey, Widj! You'd smell better if you showered! You still smell like burnt hair! Maybe you'd be more upbeat...with a new haircut!"

Chase laughed and patted Widget on the head. "I can probably salvage something from your hair. Poor thing, you do look frazzled! A professional appearance will increase morale, or something like that. What do you say? First Lieutenant? Should I call you , 'Leslie'?"

"Just leave me as Widget. I feel like a 'First Lieutenant' but not like a 'Leslie'. A shower would be good, and a new hairdo would be acceptable, I guess. Gosh, I probably look ragged. Yeah, morale, good idea, Chase. By the way, you don't have to treat me like a little girl. Treat me like an equal", Widget said, looking at Chase with narrow eyes. "Please don't patronize me."

Chase turned pink at the chiding. She had done exactly that, to put Widget in her place. Widget turned the tables on Chase and put the Cyber-psychologist neatly in her place.

Neko-Ney said proudly, "I'm a cat. You should worship me."

Chase rolled her eyes and laughed. "I'm trying to herd cats. LITERALLY! Oh my God! When DID artificial intelligence become so damned intelligent?"

Neko-Ney laughed and said, "That's why I'm so perfect! Part cat, part super-cyborg, all super-sexy womanly woman! Worship will be accepted at my altar, and all sacrifices will be accepted with good cheer!"

Chase giggled as Widget laughed out loud. Fidget came out of the bathroom with her eyes dried and asked in amazement, "You have an altar?"

Neko-Ney looked outraged ,shouting, "UH!" and steamed toward the kitchen and yelled at them, "What is that, right there next to the toaster?"

They filed into the kitchen and stared at the cardboard 'Altar to the Super-Sexy Cat-Goddess, Neko-Ney' which was about a arm-span tall by a fore-arm wide of glitter-glued, spangled, glittered, red-lettered altar. It looked vaguely Hindu, except for the picture of Neko-ney in the center, flashing a pair of peace signs.

Chase guffawed in amazement, while Widget stared and Fidget giggled. Chase looked at Neko-Ney and asked, "When did you find time to do this—THING?"

"I'm a goddess! It's a miracle!" Neko-ney boasted proudly.

Fidget smirked, "Nuh-hunh! You had the 'Pretty-Polly' slave-girl thingee do it. You gave her the design wifi-wise and she spent all night making it? Right?"

Nekeo-Ney smiled and blew on her claws and grinned, flashing a V-for-victory sign, and exclaimed, "Hey, ya rube! Like I said–it was a MIRACLE! A MIRACLE she got it right."

They all laughed.

Chase said wryly, "With you jokers, boredom won't be a problem!"

They went back to searching the house.

The dead-man had loved women, and scantily clad. He had some more guns, bigger caliber and magnum as well. Widget went about servicing them. They found the car, which was a 2065 Mustang convertible in metal racing green color. They found a life-time of junk and paraphernalia. Fidget was happy to find kid's toys and crayons.

Chase was surprised when Fidget asked her to pose for a drawing. She felt weird about Fidget wanting to draw. Creative endeavors were the purview of the living . These replicants continued to shock and surprise her. That they operated WITHOUT their main personality program was shocking to her. It was like a computer working without it's operating system. She couldn't even begin to understand how they could even MOVE without their Primary Control Program.

Chase shrugged and said, "Sure, honey-bug. You just draw away!"

Chase felt so strange. She sat on the sofa while Fidget sketched away while sitting on the coffee table. Widget sat in the recliner, stripping and oiling the hand-guns. Neko-Ney had gotten into the sexy-wear of 'Pretty Polly' and had put on a latex bra and panties and was playing with a wind-up mouse she had found upstairs in the attic. It felt so homey and comfortable, with the late afternoon sun-light spilling onto the floor. It was a moment of comfortable eternity that struck Chase as surreal.

Widget looked over at Fidget's art and snorted derisively. Widget squeak-mailed Fidget something that turned her pink in embarrassment.

Chase said, "Widget! Come on! Try to have a heart! Fidget, honey...let me see it."

Fidget stood up and handed it to Chase. It was primitive and very rough looking. That is NOT what made Chase's eyes widen. Down one side were strange marks. They were hieroglyphs of some strange language, crayoned in Fidget's hand. The top symbol was a spiral with four rays coming from it. It gave a weird feeling to Chase.

"Fidget–what are these marks?" Chase was edgy, and couldn't say why.

Fidget made a sound like a fast sneeze.

Chase blinked. "What?"

Fidget made the sound again slower and louder.

Chase looked around in confusion.

Neko-Ney shrugged and said, "Beats me. That's their term for the ultra-sonic communication language. I didn't KNOW it had a written component!"

Widget said, "Fidget is the only one of us that can write in it. Myself, Two and even Four can't remember the gylphs well enough to write them, though we can read them when we see them."

" 'THEIR' term for it! Who is THEY? Neko? Where did this ultra-sonic language come from?" Chase was suddenly anxious and her pulse was pounding

Fidget said, "It's from Four's dream of the strange place of aliens."

Chase looked at Fidget and said carefully, "What do you mean, 'From Four's dream of strange aliens?' "

Fidget said thoughtfully, "They were strange. The place was strange. They were aliens. They weren't alive. They were dead, but still moving. Like alien ghost thingees! The guys that weren't there, taught Four to speak, and read and write TzktlkpcH."

Chase frowned and took Fidget's hands and said, "I don't understand how you remember Four's dream."

Widget shrugged and said, "Fidget's CPU is defective."

Fidget spun around and stamped her foot and exclaimed, "IS NOT! I'm just learning is all. Minor routines didn't write properly, BUT the back-ups did so NANI-NANI-BOO-BOO on you!"

Widget laughed and said, "Sorry, kid. Just pickin' at you. It's Two. Two and Three...I mean Fidget, here–have a weird , peculiar connection. When we share dreams, Two can write directly to Fidget's..."

"WHAT? You shared dreams as well as memories? Why in god's name aren't you like the Borg from science fiction? I don't understand!" Chase felt on the edge of an abyss, but couldn't tell where the edge is.

Neko snorted and laughed.

"Sand and suger! It's simple! Cats know these things!" Neko looked expectantly at Chase.

Neko shook her head and said simply, "You can mix sugar and sand and they look like a cohesive mix. Pour water on it and the sugar melts, and reforms later, but the sand stays the same! Yeesh! You went to school to be so smart? I'm cat-smart! Sorry, the cat-goddess o'knowledge has kicked your mental butt kicked again!" Neko rolled in the sunlight and purred.

Widget sighed and waved a hand in a rolling fashion and looked at Chase in a curious way. Chase nodded at her. Widget continued, "Two can write to Fidget's memory in a way, I haven't seen before. I can't do it. Four can't do it. Two shares Four's weird dreams, which I can't really remember, but writes them to Fidget's central memory core. Fidget can access them and not even FOUR can remember the dreams because they get filtered out in the Primary Control Program. 'Gadget' can only remember the alien dreams in Fidget's body and brain."

Neko snorted, "Sugar and sand! Jes' wha' I said, guvenor!" She used a ludicrous English accent and held her hands and feet in the air, wiggling them. When she finished speaking, she splayed her limbs wide and sighed deeply. Fidget giggled.

Chase said, "Let me get this straight. Fidget–you only have a couple of 'gylphs' from Four's dreams. NOT a complete dictionary?"

Fidget nodded. "Yeah. I only got seventy-eight phonemes, and forty-seven thousand three hundred fifty-seven words with basic grammar. Sorry. It's all I got." Fidget looked a little sad.

Chase had jumped up and backed away. She was paralyzed in stark terror now. Her numb lips chattered out, "ONLY forty-SEVEN thousand....basic grammar....phonemes! Oh my GOD! What ....WHO...."

Neko-Ney sprang on Chase , knocking her back onto the sofa. Neko bit her hard on the hip and sprang off of her and thundered up the stairs out of sight.

Chase shrieked and cursed for a moment and realized that she was rational again She panted as if she had been holding her breath and broke out laughing.

She chortled, "The 'cat-goddess' kicks my mental ass again! Dammit!"

Widget laughed, "She saved me from slapping you. You were freaking out. Doctor Fairweather picked well."

Chase straightened up, as Fidget sat down next to her and snuggled up to her in distress.

Chase looked at Widget, and asked ,"What does THAT mean?"

"Neko-Ney is Doctor Fairweather's agent here. He spent as much time with Neko-Ney as with Unit Four. He even called Neko-Ney 'Four's sister'. I know that Neko-Ney has a processor like mine , or Fidget's! No live brain in that cat's head! So we still have nothing, but more grist for the mill." Widget looked uncomfortable.

She stood up and stretched. She said, "You asked, 'who is they?' " She walked over to Chase and smiled, "The Gadgets came up with 'Squeak-mail' last year after Three replaced a Gadget unit killed in an accident. Three, or Fidget told the other replicants in the Rescue-Rangers pods. That's twenty-four replicant's right there. The Chip, Dale, Monterey Jack, Sparky, Foxfire and Tammy the squirrel ,ones all know a lot of the words. It is simpler than wifi and short range and uses less power. Only the Gadgets, like me, are fluent in it. Doctor Fairweather found that out from Four. Only you know about the written language."

She got up close to Chase and said, "I DON"T remember the writing, when I don't see it. I can read it when I see it. I can't write it when I don't remember the written language. It is a program constraint, isn't it? Probably password protected. Two did something to Three's set-up. Doctor Fairweather was involved, but I don't know how. Two injured herself to do it. I'm sure of that! I'm sorry. I'm not much help with this."

Neko-Ney bounce back downstairs happily, and announced, "Hoo-HAH! 'Pretty-Polly can drive the frog-mobile in the garage! She can dress up in her ordinary clothes and look normal, except for the eyes. The blue-smoked glass eyeballs are SO last decade!"

She ran over to Fidget and licked her face. Fidget was surprised and giggled, going, "Eewww! Stop that! Heeheeheeheeheehee! What's that for?"

Neko bounded over to the PTV and pulled out the UTC cable and wiggled it at Fidget and said, "Plug in and show us the language. I want an education in 'TzktlPkH'!"

Fidget, still giggling, went over to the Universal Translator Connector cable and said, "It is pronounced ' TzktlkpcH'! You have an awful accent! You sound positively Huyeotl!" Fidget cleared the hair from her UTC socket at the base of her skull and jacked the PTV into her CPU pick-up server.

The screen showed the knowledge of the 'TzktlpcH' language. Chase recognized some of the symbols. "HEY! Some of those are from the Doorways Operating System by UTX! They are programming code called Unicode version 48.03!"

On the PTV screen, some thirty-odd gylphs turned orange and Fidget said, "Only thirty-two of the seventy-eight phonemes are used in Unicode version 48.03. The 'submissive artificial intelligence' case are used. These on the screen, here–", she high-lighted another group in bright red, "There are another twenty used in 'assertive' or 'independent artificial intelligence' and this group over here–", a group of twenty turned green, " are for use of 'submissive biological intellegences' and all of them are used by 'assertive biological intelligence' of the TzktlpcK."

Chase asked every question she could think of to find out about these 'so-called aliens'. Fidget couldn't answer any of them. She didn't know how long they were civilized, or what planet they were from, or what they looked like.

Chase spent all afternoon asking Fidget questions about the 'aliens'. She found out some somethings about them, that were peculiar. They had a pair of 'assertive or dominate' eyes and a pair of 'submissive' eyes. That they had a 'dominate right' and 'submissive right' arms and same on the left side. They had might have had tails. They focused on dominant and submissive forms of language, not so much 'masculine' and 'feminine' aspects. She wasn't sure what it all meant.

She was sure by the nightly news, that the language was authentic. There was simply to much of it to simply be made up in the replicant's off-time. She was staggered by the implications. Either Matamoros had found old ruins, or a crashed space-ship or was in contact with live aliens and all the technology he had 'discovered' were alien technologies from another world.

Widget asked while, while Neko-Ney was busy in the kitchen fixing dinner, "Why doesn't he have space-ships or ray-guns? Or teleporters? Or other sci-fi stuff? Do the alien dudes have a prime directive again spreading to much of their sci-fi technology?"

Chase shrugged and said, "Don't know. Maybe he can only use what he figured out how to use. The other stuff is beyond him or something? Lemme run to the can."

In the bathroom, she discovered a lack of feminine hygiene products. She was irked and was starting into PMS really bad. She felt a bit off and now she knew why. She came out and came over to Neko-Ney and said, "Give me the last of the money and tell me where that store is, that you went to this morning. I need to go make a run."

Neko said, "I got all kind of food, and even Coffee! Mmmmm coffee! What else do you need?"

Fidget giggled and said to Neko, "You sound like Widget about coffee!"

"Tampons, you goof!" Chase snapped at Neko and felt irritable.

Widget said, "Oops! Those things? Eehhh, uh..ahem. Well...we don't need'em"

Chase rolled her eyes and said slowly, "I know that! I do. Where is the store?"

Widget said, "You shouldn't go out! What if you're spotted? Tell Neko-Ney and she'll get them for you."

Neko looked askance at Chase. Chase said quietly, "Noone is getting them for me! Period–about-my-period! No way. I'm very picky!"

Fidget, looking in the freezer said, "We need ice-cream, too. Hey, Chase, what ice cream goes well with tampons?"

Chase blinked and burst out laughing. "WHAT? Oh, gawd! You three just don't get it! Rocky Road goes fine with tampons, Fidget. You nut! You don't eat TAMPONS! They are feminine hygiene products!"

Fidget blinked and started to giggle. "I didn't mean....heeheeheeheehee...to EAT with..."

Neko said, as she handed over the money to Chase, "You turn left out of the house and walk to the end of the block. Turn left and follow the road til you get to it. It's half a mile. HEY! Polly can drive you! I'm out of tuna, too. I need tuna for my omelette tomorrow morning."

Chase made a gagging noise and Widget said, "You and your 'catfood' omelette!"

Chase said, "Lets go!"

Neko asked as they collected Polly, the cyber-doll, "Hey, Chase...we can't call you 'Chase'! What's your middle name?"

Chase frowned and slid into the passenger seat and buckled in, saying, "NO way is ANYONE calling me by my middle name! It sucks!"

Fidget got into the back seat with Neko-Ney. Neko-Ney was back in her mini-dress of black and purple and Fidget was in some kind of Catholic school-girl outfit, complete with knee-socks and tie.

Fidget laughed and asked, "Is your name 'Chase Sucks Victory'?

Chase said sadly, "Worse. Chase SALUTORIOUS Victory!'

Neko, eyes agog, giggled, "SAL-Ooooooooo-torry-US?"

Fidget said simply, "Sally Torrious! Simple. We'll call you 'Sally'."

Chase shrugged and said, "At least it isn't a profanity."

Fidget exclaimed, "Hey, that's what Widget said!"

Chase rolled her eyes as they pulled up in the parking lot in front of the Ultra-K grocery store. "Great", she muttered. "Now, I'm quoting from the book of Widget!"

Anthony Fong was feeling depressed after losing his job as a Walt Disney World security guard. He had just picked up some chocolate milk and some eggs from the dairy case and was heading up to the check-out when a cookie vendor caught his eye.

"Hi! Want to try our chocolate cookies? They are brand new and fresh from the micro-wave! They cook in seconds and have a just baked flavor! I'm giving away free samples!"

He came up because she was young and cute and he might hope for another kind of free sample, but he really needed a chocolate cookie. As he came up, a small mouse girl with long, lustrous chestnut curls and big blue-eyes came up. She was in a school-girl outfit, complete with knee socks and shiney black shoes.

She was sniffing the air and had an enchanted look on her face. She shyly asked, while Anthony took a cookie without comment and started eating it, "Miss–can I have one ,too? They smell so good!"

The girl behind the counter, paused and looked from the replicant to Anthony and back. The mouse-girl looked at Anthony and pleaded, "Please, Mister Fong! Tell her to give me a cookie!"

He looked at the girl and said, "It won't hurt anything! Just give her a cookie. HEY!"

The moose looked at the mouse-girl who took the cookie and nibbled it quickly and smiled, "It's good!"

Anthony looked confused as he ran down in his mind everyone he ever met with a mouse-girl looking android, replicant or cyber-doll. He drew a blank. He frowned and asked of the mouse-girl, "Hey! How do you know me? How do you know my name?"

The little mouse girl looked blank and then giggled cutely and said, "Hi! I'm Fidget! I didn't get to say much, when we met. You're Anthony Fong, a guard at Disney World!"

A pair of girls came around the Cheetos display and one of them said to the mouse girl, "Fidget! I told you not to run off! Sir, I'm sorry if she bothered..."

Anthony recognized her in a shocked instant that caused his eyes to bug out.

She obviously recognized him as well.

Her face paled to white as she whispered, "Oh, shit."

She gulped as the blood drained fro his face and she forced a smile and said, "Hello...ah..ANTHONY! How nice to see you again. I trust you're well?"

He backed up a full step in shock. "You! You're the girl in the truck! With the ..."

Fidget turned and pointed a finger at the girl behind the counter like it was a gun, and said, "Stick-em-up! Gimme all your cookies!" Fidget burst out giggling and gasped out, "Or at least four dollars worth! Mmmmmmmm, COOKIES! We have a chocolate need!"

Anthony looked at the replicant mouse girl and felt terrified and turned to run. He came face to face with a grin without a cat, and needle-pointed, razor-sharp death. Neko-Ney appeared from nowhere, grinning and claws extended.

"I never carry a gun–but I'm always armed. Hey, Whassup, Tony? Ya not gonna faint again on us this time?" Neko-Ney sounded joking, but Anthony had a cat and saw that this cat's ears were at half-mast and her eyes glowed with green fire. Her tail lashed back and forth once.

The girl behind the counter missed most of the interplay and bagged four dollars worth of chocolate cookies for Fidget. Fidget turned and jerked on Anthony's jacket and when he turned slowly around, keeping his hands in sights, she said quietly to him, "Sorry for the trouble! Here, Mister Tony! Have a cookie!"

He took the cookie and looked at it, with a terrified feeling deep inside of him.

Chase took his arm and walked him up to the check out. She whispered tersely, "You are going to have to come with us. We can't let you tell the police. That would tip off UTX as where we are. That would cause our lives to shorten! Sorry. Please co-operate and you won't be hurt."

He ate the cookie and tried to figure out what he needed to do. Survive was highest on his list of things to do today, so he chose that to do. He said to her, "You girls cost me my job. They fired me because I had fainted and let you slip through. Jack had called the cops after he let you go downtown, and that covered his fat ass. That Watts asshole chewed me up one side and down the other. I think that jerk used to a drill instructor for the Marines!"

Chase stopped him, her fingers digging painfully into his thin arm. She looked shocked. She said, "WHAT....what did you say? You met an ex-drill instructor named WATTS? My god...it can't be coincidence!"

She dragged him up to the auto-check out. He let the chip reader read off the amounts and waved his cash card at the pick-up and it showed him his remaining amount. She put down the tampons, and gallon of Rocky Road and put cash into the hopper. She left the coins to the next shopper and hustled hurriedly out of the store.

Fidget rode in the front this time and Chase took off her jacket and sat next to Anthony, who in turn sat next to Neko-Ney. Once under-way, Chase put the Jacket over Anthony's head with a , "Sorry! We can't let you see our hide-out!"

They arrived in the garage after Chase told 'Polly', the cyber-doll to drive around for a while, before they arrived back at the garage. Widget greeted them at the kitchen door with a .50 caliber revolver , the handle of which she had modified. Suffice it to say—she was outraged.

"GOOD GOLLY! You go out for a box of tampons and gallon of Rocky Road and end up kidnaping some GUY!? I don't believe it!" She tried hard not to shout, but she did anyway.

Chase took her jacket off of Anthony's head and Widget rolled her eyes. "Oh for crying out loud! It's the fainting wonder, himself! The sorriest security guard to ever work for Disney. Hands up against the wall, 'fainting Fong'! Feet back and spread them. I will assume no one patted him down for weapons?"

The others looked shocked and Neko flinched. " Oops! Sorry had more important things to find out! He lives four blocks away, has a bank balance of $202.30. And owns a male cat named Rufus!"

Anthony and Chase looked shocked. Anthony looked at Neko-Ney and said while he assumed the 'position', "How in HELL do you know my cat's name?"

Chase said, "I'd like to hear this one."

Neko beamed, "It's a miracle! I'm a cat-goddess!"

Neko-ney produce Anthony's billfold from her cleavage and opened it up. "Here is 'me and Rufus.' Here is 'me and Rufus at mom and dad's'. I can read. I am 99.876% sure of him being unarmed, also!"

Widget finished patting him down. She announced, "He's clean!" She backed up and covered him with the huge hand-gun

Neko announced, "And he smells good ,too! And–I'm starving! Swedish meatball time!."

Chase smiled at him ruefully at him and gestured to him and said, "Dig in. Since we kidnaped you, we better feed you. I am so sorry! We aren't criminals. We found out that UTX had put a live human brain into the body of Gadget Unit Four for some reason and they sent cleaners to croak us all off, and we were tougher than they thought and had to shoot a bunch of them. Do you want ginger-ale, hot coffee of chocolate milk with your Swedish meatballs?"

He blinked in surprise at the bizarre turn of events and sat down on one of the worn plastic kitchen chairs hard. "Ch-chocolate milk, please."

Fidget announced, "I got it! I hope you don't mind a 'Strippers of Las Vegas' glass. It's all we have clean. I haven't had time to do the dishes yet. We had to get tampons, chocolate cookies and kidnap you. Well we didn't want the last, but—well, golly there we are!"

He ate supper with them ,while he was told by them, more details of what happened and why, than he wanted to know. They babbled and finished each other's sentences and talked over each other. He knew he was a kidnap victim, but he really felt for them. He didn't really want to, but he felt sympathetic for what they went through.

He waved a hand over the dishes and said, "Whoever cooked this was great! The food was like eating at mom's. It was all by scratch, wasn't it?"

Neko beamed. "Yep! Bona-fida cat-magic! I'm magnificent! It takes a perceptive man to notice such perfection!"

"You're real shy and retiring, too. I noticed that , too." He was put off by them all, but the cat-girl was enticing and frightening.

She flirted and acted quite shameless. She thought it was funny and laughed from his reactions. Fidget gathered up the supper dishes and put them into the dishwasher

Chase looked at Anthony Fong and said, "You said you met someone named Watts who chewed your butt out?"

"Yeah. He was the one who shot the Gadget replicant on 'World Roving Eye'. Someone submitted their recording and he ended up the center of a controversy about the shooting. He was the commander of the UTX S.W.A.T. Team that was on-site that cussed me up one side and down the other. Why is everyone looking at me like that?" The Gadget's were stricken looking and Neko looked sick. Chase looked pale and wan from that news and got up and went over to the PTV.

She said to the PTV, "Wild search. Following conditions: Past two days in time. Key words as follows:' 'World Roving Eye'...shooting....Walt Disney World...Replicant...Watts ' Initiate search."

Chase sat down on the sofa as thumbnails and descriptions piled up on the screen. Fidget came over and sat nervously in Chase's lap. After a while , Chase picked the most likely of the hits and had it play.

They were warned strongly the following had scenes of graphic violence against a synthetic life-form that might affect young people. They weren't prepared for what they saw. It replayed the shooting death of Unit-Two at the hands of Commander John Watts, of UTX SWAT. She screamed and writhed as he carefully shot her in the major joints. She begged for her life like anyone on Earth would. He then put two bullets through her head and blew her brains out on the pavement. The sound quality was enhanced so the audience could hear her screams of pain and fear, but they couldn't hear his comments.

Fidget wailed and was unconsolable. Chase was grief-stricken in turn and just held onto Fidget and let her weep. Widget went to the fridge and got out a beer and drank it. She sat alone in the recliner and rocked and wept. Neko-Ney went over Fidget and hugged her as well.

Chase looked anguished at Anthony and whispered hoarsely, "If you escaped now, I couldn't stop you.."

Fidget rocked back and forth and moaned ," Mommy! Ahhhhhhh! Mommy!"

Anthony got up and looked at them. He should run and say nothing to anyone. He should leave now. He went over and sat on the sofa and put a hand on Fidget's head and rubbed her hair.

On the screen after some comments pro and con from the studio audience about the shooting, they had one quick question answered by SWAT Commander Watts .

The announcer came on, a young man in his early thirties, and said the following, "Early today, we had the chance to ask John Watts about his feelings about what happened in Disney World, where we learned he had lost THREE of his own men to these ' killer replicants' and a fourth lingers in a John Hopkins burn ward with third degree burns over thirty percent of his body. We caught up to Commander Watts outside Macon, Georgia, where one of these 'homicidal' replicants was spotted."

John Watts was shown outside some clinic with his men when a female reporter, in her early twenties , rushed up to him, and asked , "Commander Watts, if I might have a moment of your time? This has bearing on the shooting of the replicant in Walt Disney World. You seemed put off by how human the replicant's reactions were? Can you tell our viewers about it? In your own words?"

He looked uncomfortable, but direct. He looked directly into the camera and spoke straight saying, "It did bother me. It sounded human when I shot it. I've put down plenty of replicants, cyber-dolls, robots and other mecha that have been reprogrammed to be threats to the public, but I never heard one like that. Look, Miss–I have a job to do. A messy dangerous job. Sometimes I have to take down terrorists that reprogram these machines, to protect people just like you. When the evil people scream and beg...we give them over to a doctor, then they are prosecuted to the extent of the law."

"There's the difference! Machines are machines! They aren't alive. They are animated tools controlled by computers, built by people. When they are threats to people–people like me get the call to dismantle them and render them safe to handle. Those things were killers! Ask the families of the three men those things killed! Those things don't know right from wrong, or life from death and do what their programming tells them. When it tells them to serve mankind, I get to train, read and life ...is good. When people tell the machines to kill—then I'm on the job to protect and serve the public...no matter how loud the killers scream when we catch them." He smiled a sad, professional smile.

Widget screamed, and threw the beer-bottle at the PTV. The plastic beer-bottle bounced off and she shouted, "Shut UP! No body wants to listen to you DAD! SHUT UP!" Widget leaned over the chair arm and threw up on the floor violently. She heaved for several minutes. She gasped out heated comments, "You betrayed your orders!" "You were different after Angola!" "You mercenary!" "I hate you!"

Chase was alarmed at Widget's out bursts and said to the set, "PTV! Turn OFF!"

The screen went dark while Widget and Fidget wept for now different reasons, but the same cause. Widget stopped hurling and got up to get another beer.

Anthony said to Widget, "Should you be drinking?"

Widget went back to the recliner and twisted off the top and drank deep and said in a small voice, "No. It's nasty. It feels familiar, but I hurt so much! I don't know what else to do other than cry and drink. It feels so good to cry! When the original Unit-Three died in that awful air disaster that killed those eight people last year...We died inside. I can cry for her too. NOW."

Chase looked at Widget and asked ,"Why couldn't you cry before?"

"Programmed operating parameters due to Primary Control Program imperatives. YOU should know that, cyber-psychologist! Replicants aren't allowed to cry! We can dream of electric sheep, but can't weep when one is killed in action! That causes cyber-psychosis. You people get upset when WE get upset and don't allow it. We have to be polite and good humored when our arm is torn off or our friend is killed. I weep for Two because if the situation was reversed, I don't know if she could weep over me."

She finished her beer and passed out.

Chase called out, "Polly! "

The cyber-doll came around the corner from it's recharge closet and said, "Yes, mistress?"

Chase wrinkled her nose and ordered, "Clean up the mess by the chair and do not disturb the occupant! Understand?"

She nodded and said, "Yes, mistress!" She promptly got to it with the wet-dry vac and went about cleaning it up. She then stood and stared at Chase.

Chase said in irritation, "Go back to your closet"

"Yes, mistress." She did so

Chase looked down on Fidget who was asleep fitfully in Chase's arms, sucking her thumb like a small child.

Neko was resting her head against Chase's left shoulder and catnapping.

Anthony was moved to say, "Wow...it is one hell of a difference between these girls and the 'robo-whore'. These girls don't look as human, but....DAMN! Put human faces on'em I couldn't tell the difference. Holy crap, I felt like I was at my mom's place during dinner!"

He laid back on the sofa and thought for a moment, before continuing quieter, "They are like my little sisters. Some flirt, some are cute and some want to punch things. It was like a deja vu. These are robots? I mean...these cat and mouse girls ARE made things? Right?"

Chase shrugged and said a small voice, "I don't really know anymore. Four–has a HUMAN brain. These girls don't! They act more real than a lot of people I know! What in hell went into their manufacture?"

Chase looked at Neko-Ney and asked her, "Neko–how much power do you have left?"

Neko looked drowsy and said sleepily, "Three hundred seventy-four power units. Why?"

Chase looked startled. Then asked Neko, "Did the 'Abraham Lincoln calls Micky Mouse' Do anything to you? I mean freed you from the Primary Control Program Constraints?"

Neko shook her head and snuggled up to Chase. She said in a very sleepy voice punctured with yawns, "Never had one. YAWN Doctor Fairweather made yawn me without one. Just had character specs loaded and he taught me and let me link to the Gadgets' dreams."

She fell sound asleep against Chase. Chase's mind was fatigued, but was whirling about the latest information she found out. She couldn't put the pieces together she was just to overwhelmed and tired. She looked at Anthony, and begged him, "Please help me get these sleepy-heads upstairs. You can take Neko-Ney. I'll take Fidget. Leave Widget sleep where she fell."

Anthony was slim, but wiry. He sucked it in and said, "I'd be happy to help, ma'am!"

Chase struggled to get to her feet with Fidget in her arms, and Anthony had a like-wise time with Neko-Ney. She looked so small, but had muscles like super-balls. Neko surprised him with her weight. Chase and Anthony got them both upstairs to the master bedroom and Chase suggested that Anthony could stay on the sofa, if he wanted. She seemed to want him around , so he quickly volunteered to sit watch over Widget, by sleeping on the sofa.

He figured if he was around...he might get lucky. He took off his shirt and shoes and socks. He stretched out on the sofa with the blanket she gave him. He was surprised how easily he had gone over to their side Was he so moved by lust? He wanted an adventure. This sounded adventurous. Was he so moved by the urge to help? Also he was moved by his own curiosity as well. His last thought before falling asleep was what happened to curious cats.

Curiosity killed the cat, or so the cliche went.

Anthony dreamed of Neko-Ney coming to him naked and taking him on the sofa. He had erotic dreams all night. Widget got up in the middle of the night to go pee and was vaguely embarrassed and amused by his sleeping muttering. She took care of her business and sat back down in the recliner. She took up the UTC cable and jacked into the PTV. She looked at the 'remember mes' list on the PTV's menus and found Joshua Fisher's account. That was the dead man name, whose house they were in.

She input Search: 'USMC First Lieutenant Leslie Watts re :relationship John Watts, UTX SWAT Commander'. She sat back and started reading the lists and achievements of a life long gone.

Chase couldn't sleep. Her mind just wouldn't shut off. She slid out from between the sleeping Fidget and the catnapping Neko-Ney and went over to the dresser. She got the dead man's 3D stereo headset from it's charger and went back to bed with it. She searched the World Wifi and found some music videos and fell asleep watching some calm, peaceful scenes of nature, flanked by the sleeping replicants. She smiled at the irony of that and fell into the arms of sleep.

She awoke to Fidget fidgeting in her sleep and moaning. On her head-set, Chase was looking at some sci-fi movie about the extinction of the dinosaurs. She was about to take off the head-set until she saw the glyphs that scrolled across the bottom were the alien letters that Fidget was showing her.

Chase watched as some kind of lattice-work tube-shaped space-ship struck the Earth and killed off the dinosaurs and these round-headed saurian alien looking beings. They looked intelligent and tool-using. Some had feathers on their heads and some didn't. They all died. It was all gruesome and horrifying. They lingered and fought for life. Some died brutally, or smothered, or died trying to save others. But still–they ALL died. It was if there were hundreds of cameras floating in the atmosphere from a couple of feet up to a hundred feet up.

Chase felt like she was watching the Jewish Holocaust videos, that she had watched in high-school. She felt sick watching the saurians die. They died and died and died. Their cities burned and tidal waves crushed others and they died by the millions.

The spectacle ended when Fidget woke from her nightmare with a start. The 3D Head-set went dark with a 'Carrier Signal Lost At Source–Local Source Offline'. Chase tore off the head-set and tossed it down to the end of the bed with a gasp like she was surfacing from being under water to long. She turned to Fidget and took her into her arms and whispered to her, "Were you having a nightmare about the end of a world of dinosaurs and intelligent reptile guys?"

Fidget nodded and went, "Uh-hunh. It was scarey."

Chase held the shivering Fidget, and asked, "Where was that from?"

Fidget muttered into Chase's collar-bone, "From Four. She saw it. I hate that dream of death. Two..."She choked up and continued in a high , thin tone, "made me think of it. So much death. I hated it."

"I had on a 3D head-set. Did you know that? Did you send the dream to me?" Chase was curious.

Fidget nodded. "I thought you wanted to dream with me! I was all alone. Two, or Widget or Four wasn't here. I didn't want to dream the awful dream alone. Neko was there, at least. It was scarey. I–I could tell you were watching....but you weren't there like Neko was. Widget doesn't like these dreams. She left and woke up."

Chase hugged Fidget and sweated. She remembered Milo's words about these replicants. 'This isn't anything like school!' He had no idea. His disengaging of these replicants Primary Control Programs should have crippled them into insensate torpor. Instead...it opened Pandora's box. They weren't human. At least any longer. Chase responded to Fidget like a child and Widget like a ...rival. They were physically identical, but acted light-years apart.

She looked across the light-years at Fidget and wondered whose child she was.

Chase woke suddenly as sunlight poured into her eyes, blinding her momentarily. She sat up as Fidget bounded back on the bed from the shades. She pouted and said in a small voice, "I'm sorry that I made you see scarey dreams last night. I didn't mean to. I just needed your help to be strong, and felt you near me with an open receiver and thought.... Well–sorry! I didn't ask."

Chase squeezed Fidget's shoulders and slid off the bed. "Honey, if you are in trouble, ask for help. It's what makes us human. EHN! Don't make a face at me, little girl! You are more human than many!. Just because you look like a mousey don't mean much to me. It doesn't matter whether you look like a garbage-man or a lil' mouse-cutey. Your soul is more important....", Chase trailed off into deep thought.

After a moment in a distracted tone of voice, she said to Fidget, "Come on, sprout! Lets go get breakfast!"

Downstairs, Anthony and Neko were having a spirited discussion about tuna casserole. She was in favor of a little cummin and Anthony was talking about a little bit of scallions and ginger. Chase was happy to see breakfast at least was standard omelettes and bacon. She hated tuna and was loathe to come out and lambaste anyone's preferences, no matter how awful they were.

She grabbed a plate and loaded up and went in to the sofa where Widget was immersed in the life of Leslie Watts. Chase looked at Widget's hollow and intense eyes. Widget had the look of someone who had been playing video-games for way to long.

Chase said to Widget, "You haven't been at this all night, have you?"

Widget in a steady voice read off, "Date of birth: April 3rd, 2048. Date of death, due to complications caused by the Silico-Organic Virus Outbreak, September 2nd , 2071. I joined service with the United States Marine Corps on June 1st , 2066. I fought as a Marine aviator in the Angola war of 2066 to 2067. I was shot down behind enemy lines and won the Purple Heart. I got two of my crew out alive and won the Congressional Medal of Honor, awarded January 2nd , 2068. I was a brown belt in Kung-fu, and had Sharp-shooting ribbons for marksmanship."

Widget blinked and read on, "I grew up in Des Moines, Iowa. When I was twelve, I had a brown rabbit named Monty. I had one cat named Jinx, and a brother named Marty. I loved my father, who was the one who rescued me and the other two fliers in Angola, in direct violation of his orders. It cost him his career and pension to do so. Then five years later–I died and really let him down. I cost him everything. Or he gave up everything to save me. And now I'm not Leslie anymore. I'm Widget Hackwrench, who just remembers BEING Leslie Watts..

Widget looked over at Chase who was eating hungrily and said, "I can't find it–mention of one fact. I had a tattoo of a red, white and blue Dragon rearing on my right shoulder the said below it, 'They few, The Proud, The Marines'. I can't find mention of it in the BLOGs I kept, or any mention anywhere." She sounded frustrated and tired.

Chase was boggled by her progress. Fidget said in exultation, "Go you! I still don't know anything about me. You got a complete prehistory! Wow!"

Chase said, "After all that, you really should get some sleep, and let it absorb."

Widget got up and stretched, starting around the chair to the kitchen. Widget said, "I'll take a nap and regenerate some. This is a whole life-time to absorb. I'm through collating and I'm writing files for storage right now. I'll get some food and let the...WHOA!" She had stopped, looking shocked in the kitchen. From where Chase was sitting, she couldn't see, neither could Fidget. They both jumped up and ran to look. Anthony was red-faced and pulling his hands from under Neko's shirt.

Widget said in annoyance, "Get a room, you two!"

Fidget giggled and said in a chiding voice, "Neko has a boy-friend! Neko and Anthony sitting in a tree, K-i-s-s-i-n-g!"

Anthony turned redder, and said loudly as Chase and Fidget laughed at them, "HEY! Shut up! Jeez, we just got carried away!"

Widget wedged her way in to get some breakfast, and said off-hand to Neko-Ney, "You alley-cat!"

Neko purred back at Widget, "More people like stroking pussy cats more than even touching mice for a reason. Nyah-ha-ha!"

Widget rolled her eyes and took her plate of food into the living-room to eat.

They had a long argument after breakfast as to what to do . Anthony suggested they go to the press about what was going on, where Chase was more interested in staying alive and leaning toward the government, and maybe the F.B.I.. Widget suggested maybe Homeland Security Agency would want to know about UTX's hijinx.

The phone rang.

Chase waved them out of the pick-up and answered it. It was Hank Lassiter. He smiled at her and said, "Hey, little-girl. I got some friends of your's over here. A pair of chipmunks and a guy named Jerry Reynolds."

She hesitated and said, "Pair of 'chipmunks'?"

Hank shrugged and said quietly, "The REPLICANT-chipmunks claim to be sent by some guy named Milo Finch. If you want to talk to them...you might want to come down here to the clinic."

She frowned and said carefully, "Hank, isn't the clinic being watched by the cops...or by YOU know who?"

"According to sources, it isn't anymore . Since you were definitely seen in Seattle do to friend of mine. Anyway do you want to talk with them or not?" Hank looked expectantly at Chase.

Chase said, "Let me make a call. I'll call you right back."

Chase punched in the numbers she had committed to wrist-top for Doctor Jules Fairweather's air car. After a moment, it flashed a 'No-one is available. Leave a message–YES/NO?' sign she hung up and turned to the rest of them, especially Widget and asked, "What now?"

Widget frowned and said slowly, "It might well be a trap. To lure us out. They don't know we have Anthony. He can drive the get-a-way car for us."

Neko said, "Polly can shoot now. I reprogrammed her. She isn't very good, but could keep somebody busy and she might get lucky."

Widget looked at her and asked, "Where do you find the time? Never mind. They don't know Neko-Ney either. Maybe. She can change hair and eyes and skin at will. She goes in first in disguise and checks the place out. She calls the phone in the car and lets us know what's going on. IF it is clear, then Chase, Fidget and I go in. Neko is on-site ready to bail us out and Polly is outside in the car with Anthony ready to come in, guns blazing if things go south badly."

Widget frowned and said, "I want to be clear on this. IF this is a trap–we will lose people. We CAN"T take on the fire-power that UTX can throw at us. If we escape, we go to the Feds. Even if they MIGHT be in UTX's pocket....we are out of choices if we get into a running fire-fight on the surface-streets! Golly, we'll be in a world of hurt then."

Chase looked at everyone and hugged them in turn. She sighed and said in a shakey voice, "We have to crap, or get off the pot. We can't stay in this house forever. We have to get the truth out! We have to expose UTX for the evil crumbs they are! I just want you all to know how much I love you guys....in case somebody doesn't make it."

Chase turned to the phone before she lost her nerve. She turned it and phoned the clinic back. Hank picked up. He asked her, "Well, running girl? What's the verdict?"

She looked thoughtful and said to him, "I'm coming in. I'm curious to hear what they have to say. It'll be half an hour or so. Depends on traffic. Love you, Hank! Thanks."

He nodded and said, "Same at you, buttercup. See you in a while."

Chase rang off and shuddered. She turned and said, "We are a go."

Widget said, "Alright, gun violence a possibility! I'll take one of the 4mm machine pistols and the .50 caliber revolver and the two speed loaders for it. Fidget gets the small-handled .357 hammer-shrouded revolver. Remember Fidget! Short range only. Point and click interface! There is one reload speed loader for it! No second chances!"

Fidget nodded grimly and held Chase's hand.

Widget continued, "Chase gets the other 4mm machine pistol. Neko gets a pair of matched .50 caliber single-shot hold outs. Polly gets the shotgun. It's loaded with armor-piercing flechettes. It MIGHT drop somebody. Shoot them in the face with it. It's 12 gauge and puts a lot of power on target. Anthony–we only have a Sig-Sauer P210 in 9mm for you. The ammo won't penetrate diddly-squat of an armored foe."

Anthony brightened and said, "They took back the 4mm pistol they gave me, but I have reversed ogive armor-penetrators in 9mm at home! A box worth! I own one of the older style pistols at home."

Widget said, "Alright. We stop by Anthony's place and pick up GOOD ammo for the old guns and we go."

Chase nodded and they did that.

Neko went in with Anthony to make sure he wouldn't turn them in and they motored over to downtown Orlando. They let Neko out a block away and she went in black-cat mode. Her hair was jet black and her skin was chocolate brown, and her eyes were hazel. She simply strolled up and into the place.

Neko walked up to the counter and asked the woman behind the counter, "Ma'am? Can I please use the bathroom? My momma is coming in a few minutes."

The nurse rolled her eyes and shook her head and pointed to a door. The nurse said, "Through that door and all the way to the end of the hall. Door on the left."

"Thank you!"

Neko went on in and skipped down the hall. The nurse shook her head and said, "Kids these days! Looked like a cat, but was at least polite." The phone rang and she picked it up again.

Neko looked for hidden troops and robots and such and found the place to be clean. She phoned the car and said so. Chase said, "We're coming in."

Fidget, Chase and Widget got out. And said in a normal voice, "Thanks for the ride , Mister! We appreciate it." Widget told Anthony on a text message to park in the back and leave the motors running. He nodded and parked, while the three women went in the back.

Chase walked in like she was walking on eggs-shells. Her guts were jumping and she was very nervous. Widget was cool and professional and scanned all openings, door and areas of ingress and egress. Widget gave Chase's arm a squeeze. Chase smiled, or tried to.

She found Hank and his guests in the office in the back of the building. Jerry Reynolds stood up and then so did Chip and Dale. There was hubbub as they got reacquainted with 'Widget' and 'Fidget'.

Jerry hugged Chase and remarked, "I'm really glad you're not dead! What in hell really happened? The news is worthless!"

Chase was glad to see Jerry, even if he wasn't Milo's favorite person. She looked at him suspiciously and asked him, "Are you an agent for UTX?"

He frowned and shook his head, "Hell, as much as you are! Look, they pay my bills and that's all. They are my employer. If that's what you mean? What is going on? I want the straight dope, not the bullshit the company doles out for the masses. Christ, what a fucked-up mess! I even got shot by ...uh someone in the whole mess up on the surface."

He frowned, "I just want the truth. Becky died and I really liked her. I--I can't believe that Milo shot her! None of this makes sense! Milo hated my guts, but I can't believe the stuff coming out of the PTV news groups",He pleaded with her emotionally.

She thought for a moment and shrugged, "Sure. Why not?" She launched into her rendition of events, leaving out any mention of Neko-Ney, or Hank's involvement about where he put her up at or finding 'Pretty-Polly' at the house OR encountering Anthony Fong again.

Jerry was shocked and astounded by the revelation that Fidget knew an alien alphabet. He said, "I can't believe that the Primary Control Program in these two are disabled! They should just be laying there breathing! What was Fairweather playing at? Jeez!"

Widget smirked at him and said, "You should know, Jerry! Mister Matamoros was paying you to spy on Doctor Fairweather!"

Chase was shocked and put her hand on her pistol. He shrugged without shame and smiled, "Sure, I spied on him. I knew there was something going on. I had NO idea that it involved ALIENS? Holy god! I thought Fairweather was involved in something unsavory, and Matamoros was an alright guy. Guess I was wrong. Seems they both had their hands dirty. Lord. Figures!"

He looked over at the thoughtful looking Chip and Dale and said, "I found these two skulking around the Interstate entrance to the maintenance entrance to the park. They told me that Milo had 'commissioned' them to find Chase and call him when they got info he didn't have." He shook his head and said after a moment, "I just don't know. Human brains in replicants, human personalities in replicant brains, aliens in the background of UTX shaping human governments. UTX has a ton to answer for."

He edged close to Chase and took her hand and said in a low, conspiratorial tone, "Look–those bastards killed Becky , and want to do the same to you, right? I have and idea! I know a hacker. One of the best! We could publish this info to the World Wifi Web! She can put this world-wide in moments I know Ruby Laser! We're old buds. Give me a copy of the alien language record and we can really put the screws to UTX!"

Dale giggled and said, "Gee, Jerry...You always have an angle on stuff. You must have an angle on this , too!"

Chip snorted and remarked, "Sure he does. Oldest dodge in the books. He tells the hacker which blows a hole in UTX stock prices while he sells out. The price plummets to nothing and he steps in with capitol and picks up the pieces really cheap and ends up a billionare!"

Jerry nods and said, "Why not? They deserve to go down, and I don't want to take a bath on it either. If I clean up, well...that's just my reward for being such a great guy of bringing down the corporate giant! Come on, Chase! We can both clean up on this! It will be dangerous, but worth it. What do you say?"

Chase frowned. After a moment, she nodded, and said, "Alright. Here is a copy of the alien language from my wrist-top. It belongs to the whole world, not just me. Tell her to put it all on. In a couple of hours, we'll turn it over to the Feds."

He looked a little put off and then nodded, "Alright. Let me download it and I'll run to the john and call Ruby Laser and get things in the works. Sorry, but she works undercover and UTX would skin me alive if they knew I knew her. She has NO love for those bastards at all! This will be great! How the mighty fall!"

Chase put her wrist-top next to Jerry's and he punched several studs on it and it and downloaded the information. He uploaded a virus while Chase was looking at her read-outs. He said, "Here is a bug to put in UTX's ear if you get a chance to. Ruby came up with it to scrap UTX Doorways processors big-time. Just have them try to strip your wrist-top down or upload it and activate it and it will eat it up systems alive. Note! You have only one chance to password it! You try the wrong pass-code and your wrist-top will self-destruct! So be careful."

He gave her a big wink and a smirk and said, "It ain't much...but it is better than a bomb in the right place! Be careful with it. You could wreck a city with it. Just a little something from me to you!."

"I'm off to make a call that will change the world as we know it. Wish me luck, bright eyes!"

Jerry left the office to the bathroom.

Hank looked at Chase and shook his head and said, "I think this was a mistake. He's a player and does have an angle on this, but I don't trust him. He's up to something."

Dale said, "Don't we know it! He flirted with every girl we talked to. Wowee, mister charm! We need to call Milo and tell him what we found out. Hey, Doctor Hank? Can we use this phone?"

Hank said, "Sure, go ahead. This has been a weird day. Chase, I hope this turns out well for all concerned, but I fear it won't."

In the bathroom, Jerry pulled out his special black-market anti-spyware white-noise generators and converted his wrist-top over to text-message mode. He texted his stock-broker with a 'sell UTX' order. Then he texted his on-again-off-again girl-friend Ruby Laser and down-loaded the story to her.

She texted back after a quick skim, "This sounds like the Playa Maya Manifesto! Take care Playa Jerre'! These guys will eat you up. Later. :)"

Then he called Mister Matamoros' special number.

"Hello, Mister Reynolds. I trust you have something important for me.

Jerry sweated like a pig and licked his lips. He took a deep breath and said, "The Gadgets from Disney World are operating WITHOUT their Primary Control Programs. One of them that Chase Victor named Fidget, KNOWS an Alien language and can not only SPEAK it, but read and write it! This Fidget learned this language from Unit Four. She is emotionally linked to Chase Victor. Sir ...this is important. Isn't it?"

Maxamilian struggled for control at the other end of the phone. After a moment, he said cooly, "Yes, Mister Reynold. VERY important. Now...please leave there so we can collect them. You have thirty seconds to get off the premises. You'll be rewarded for your efforts."

Jerry looked at the phone and muttered, "Thirty? Oh–shit!" He rang off and burst out of the bathroom and ran out the back door like all the devils in hell were on his hells.

In Doctor Lassiter's office, Dale picked up the phone and dialed the Boeing air-car of Doctor Fairweather. The answering device picked up to everyone's disgust. Widget heard a door bang in the hallway and opened the door to the hallway. She saw the back door bang closed and the bathroom door swing open again. Widget pelted down the hall to the back-door and glanced out to see a pair of armored cars pull up. They were both marked U.T.X S.W.A.T.

Chip moved around Dale to look down the hall, as Dale said into the phone pick-up, "Found them! They are mostly alive and intact. We don't have much time to talk! Chase found out that human engrams are encoded on the support thingees. We learned Widget is really USMC First Lieutenant Leslie Watts and that Fidget knows an alien language..."

Down the hall, Chip saw Widget pull out a pair of pistols as a huge black armor figure, holding a sub-machine gun, rushed though the open back-door. Neko-Ney leapt over Chip in a single vault and landed in the office

Neko-ney screamed in warning, "They're coming through the WALLS!"

At the back door, the mil-spec Chaser had it's head blown off by two .50 caliber magnum rounds fired by Widget. The Chaser behind it fired it's three barreled sub-machine gun where she was, as she vaulted out of the line of fire, back down the hallway in the direction of where she had come.

The outside office wall caved in as the SWAT team out-side the office used one of the armored cars to ram the wall. A pair of Hunters swarmed in through the hole as the armored car pulled out. Hank was partially crushed beneath the hundreds of pounds of cinder block and Chip was stunned and prone by the falling blocks. Chase scrambled for cover as Neko destroyed the two Hunters with a .50 caliber shot to each of their heads from her single-shot pistols. Dale jumped out into the corridor, past the fallen Chip.

Out in the hallway, Widget could run over Dale laying there, jump in the bathroom, or run upstairs. She ran upstairs instead of the other options, leaping up the stairs three at a time. The remaining Chaser fired upwards through the stairs, barely missing her, while Dale was laying on top of the other, now headless Chaser. Seeing an opportunity, Dale grabbed up the three barreled sub-machine-gun and fired a long burst of 4mm flechettes into the back of the upright Chaser following Widget up the stairs.

Dale struck it in the lower back, cutting through the leg controls and scragging the lower balance controls. The Chaser fell face down and rolled over as it slid down the stairs toward Dale. Dale leapt into the bathroom for cover as the Chaser came to rest at the stair bottom.

In the office, another pair of Hunters came in through the huge hole, as Chip surged to his feet. He tackled one, throwing it off balance, as Fidget shot it once in the head and twice in the torso with her .357 magnum pistol. The other one surged toward Fidget from her blind side. Chase screamed in anger and leapt in the way. That Hunter enfolded Chase in it's padded arms and she shot into the ceiling as it shocked her insensate with it's inbuilt taser. Fidget whirled and angrily targeted the Hunter that held Chase in it's metal arms, then shot it three time in the head. It fell with a clatter upon the ground, falling on top of Chase.

Fidget reloaded her pistol and tossed it to Chip as she ran to help Chase pull the mecha off of her. Chip spun as the Chaser in the hallway levered up to fire at him. A burst of auto-fire from the bathroom caught it across the chest, as Chip blew it's head off with the small .357 revolver.

Dale popped out of the bathroom and grinned at Chip. "Better watch you butt, boyo!"

A specially armed Spartan Mk5 Mech-warrior came up to the hole in the outer office wall and presented it's mini-gun at the people in the office. Neko-Ney blurred into motion and leapt though the doorway into the hallway. Fidget threw herself over Chase, who was hopelessly tangled in the downed Hunter, and trying draw away from it. Chip threw himself over Hank as the room erupted in auto-fire. Neko watched as Fidget's dress was cut to bloody shreds as she and Chase fell prone and unmoving to the floor. Chip screamed as the special flechettes chewed into him and Hank's yells of fear were silenced by them.

Neko locked onto the mech and something happened to her. An anger that transcended anything she had ever experience came over her. She had just watched that THING shoot her friends down like dogs. She was so angry that lightning leapt from her skin as she started moving toward the mech. Her claws grew longer as she screamed in the old language, "DIE!"

The sound of Neko's angry shriek blew out all the windows in a two block radius, as she flew into the Spartan with a crash, which bowled it over as she clawed and kicked it. Neko-Ney bowled it over and carried it outside. Neko picked it up and swung it with all her might into the armored car, just outside the back-door. The Spartan shattered into bits with a huge clong, and she was just warming up.

She leapt and faded from sight between the two human SWAT outside herding the mechas, as they fired on her. They missed her cleanly as she clawed the left hand off of one and then tore the head off of the other. She hurled the severed head like a projectile, striking the one handed one in the head, knocking him cold. She leapt like a fury to the first armored car and braced her-self and flipped it over onto it's roof with a tremendous crash.

She turned and glared at the crew of the second armor-car. They called for help and buttoned up the vehicle to keep the cat-demon outside. She ran over to it and flipped it over while they were trying to escape. They ended up with sprains and one guy got a broken arm, but they were all happy just to survive the cat-demon.

Inside, upstairs, Widget shot one SWAT team-member in the thigh, which dropped him screaming. Widget leapt across a hallway to escape gun-fire from one SWAT member with a gas-mask on. She calculated her next shot and fired through several desks and one wall to hit him through the leg. He fell screaming down the stairs.

Widget fired a burst at one down the hall which cut through the water-main. It threw water down the hall in a large spray, causing him to slip and fall on his back. She ran up and shot him through his shoulder. She was out of ammo on the machine pistol, so she jumped back into one of the examination rooms.

She tossed the machine pistol and was reloading the .50 caliber four shot revolver, when a UTX SWAT man with a equally huge pistol got the drop on her from ten feet away. She was crouched down by and examination bed and he just came around the corner. He lifted the pistol and everyone in a five block radius heard Neko-Ney's scream of rage.

The windows exploded and his goggles did like-wise. Widget leapt to the side as he fired blind where she had been. The .44 magnum tore a fist-sized hole in the wooden table as she jumped up and kicked him across the face, tearing off his mask.

Commander John Watts jumped back and fired at Widget at point-blank range. She slapped aside the pistol and closed as it went off, blowing a hole in the wall. She executed a disarming move on him which sent the pistol flying across the room. He went for his back up at the same time SHE went for his back-up, too.

They collided and fell to the floor in a tangle of limbs. They punched and kicked and turned and pivoted. John broke a night-stand across Widget's back and she kicked him in the back of the knee, spilling him to the floor. Widget punched him twice more, then he foot swept her to the floor as well. John bit one of her ears and Widget head-butted him, bloodying his face.

The Commander kicked her off of him, into the examination table where she came upright with a sneer, blowing hard.

John Watts leapt up to his feet and was panting hard. He wiped his mouth on the back of his right glove, while circling Widget warily. "You fight pretty good for a machine."

She swallowed and gasped out, "You've gotten better, too, Sergeant-Major! That reverse kick is new. You must'a got that, after the Florida Keys vacation after I kicked your –kiester."

He frowned and said angrily, "I don't know you! What kind of mind game is this?"

She closed and feinted some kicks to his head, which he blocked. She danced back and said, " 'Once you defeat an enemy in THEIR mind–they are defeated.' You taught me that, Sargent-Major."

He rushed her and tackled Widget through a room divider into another examining room. She rolled backward and kicked him off. He got in a couple of body blows as she kicked him off. They spun on the floor and were on their feet immediately. He spat blood onto the floor and exclaimed at her, "DON'T call me 'Sergeant-Major!' Goddammit! Only ONE person in the world had a right to say that to me! And she is DEAD!"

Widget jerked a thumb at herself and shouted back, "I died a long time before I left! I didn't need you to save me! I could have saved my men on my own! You disobeyed a direct order to humiliate me! You left your own men high and dry and then blamed me!?"

The Commander rocked back as if hit with body blows. He looked at the short , scrawny, mouse-girl in horror and whispered, "Leslie?"

Widget spit her own blood onto the floor and sneered at him, "Yeah. Like you said on the night of my senior prom—I was too 'mousey' for the real Marines, that's why I was going to be a pilot! Did it EVER occur to you I wanted to fly because I WANTED to fly? That's why I got that darn ugly dragon tattoo! I tried everything to make you happy! When I couldn't live up to your impossible standards, I died inside. Years before my body died."

Widget snarled, "UTX did this to me. Now I AM too mousey to be a Marine!"

Commander John Watts had seen a lot of weird things, but this was unbelievable. He was frozen for the first time in his life in indecision. The door behind her was busted down by a pink and purple blur that came up next to her. Neko-Ney was covered in blood, none of it her own. She was intent on killing him, and he had no illusions about his own survival.

Widget grabbed Neko's arm with both of hers and didn't slow Neko down. Widget said, "Neko! Stop!"

Neko paused and said weeping, "They killed Chase and Fidget!"

Widget hissed at Neko, "Listen!"

Over the Commander's head-set they heard, "We have the primary replicant target and the attached human in custody, They require medical attention, so do our wounded! Withdraw IMMEDIATELY. Hand the situation over to the local law-enforcement. WITHDRAW!"

Outside they all heard the whine of aerodynes taking off and landing.

Widget said to Neko, "WITHDRAW! This isn't a suicide mission."

To the Commander, Widget snarled, "Next time, sergeant-major!"

They turned and ran out of the room, Widget scooping up his nickel-plated .44 magnum pistol, which his daughter Leslie had given him back in 2067, on his fortieth birthday. That was as painful to see, as the other things that were said.

Widget ran back to the stairs and shook Dale out of his miserable, grief-stricken torpor. He was sitting at the top of the stairs, pointing his sub-machine-gun down the stairs and whimpered to them, "I couldn't hold them. They came in –in a big wave. I heard movement. They didn't follow."

Widget lead the way downstairs tactically and back into the office. Chase and Fidget's bodies were gone. Chip and Doctor Lassiter lay where they had fallen. Widget checked Hank, and discovered he had been shot between the eyes at close range, with a large pistol and Chip had been shot in the head, too. She queried Chip's CPU emergency status on the Wifi and it responded,'cranial impact recorded, service required immediately'.

"Chip is salvageable, Come on it's time to make a run for the F.B.I.." Widget said with determination. .Neko had calmed down and was sniffing about in the fallen mecha. She picked up a crystaline shard that melted while she smelled it.

Neko announced, "Fidget and Chase were alive I think....Anesthetic dart flechettes?"

Widget shrugged and said, "NOW!"

Widget lead the way to the green Mustang, with Anthony at the wheel. Neko said something to Polly, who got out and ran to the front of the building , pulling out the 12 gauge shotgun. Dale put the unconscious Chip in the back and squeezed in next to him. Neko climbed in next to Dale, and Widget rode shot-gun with one of the tri-barreled sub-machine guns. They pulled out slow and easy.

At the front of the clinic, Polly went on a shooting rampage. She shot any kind of light. Streetlights, headlights and such were victims until the Orlando Police Department brought her to justice, by dismantling her with 4.65mm Makarovs in full auto-fire.

They drove quickly across town to the local Federal Bureau of Investigation headquarters and pulled up, just outside the blast barriers. Widget said, "Drop the guns and bombs and such. They'll either help or we're dead." there was grim nodding and they went in.

Widget took point, with a black eye and a bloody nose. She was followed by Neko-Ney, ragged and bloody from her foes. The unconscious Chip, bleeding from a head-wound was helped in by a dusty and frazzled Dale. Bringing up the rear was a very nervous Anthony Fong.

Widget walked up to the desk to the security guard ther and in a calm voice said, "Good day, sir. My name is Widget Hackwrench, also known as First Lieutenant Leslie Watts, also known as Gadget Unit-One from Walt Disney World. I would like to report a series of crimes committed by the United Techtronix Corporation. I believe they are involved in a conspiracy that might endanger the security of the United States of America. Can I talk to a Special Agent immediately?"

He looked shocked and then pressed a button. "Sir? People matching the description you left, just showed up.

The guard said, "He said wait there."

After a couple of minutes, a thirtyish man leading a team of men and women came up to Widget. He came forward and said to her, "I'm Assistant Administrator James Williams. Please come with me."

Now:

Tiffany stopped along the way to let people stretch their legs and use the bathroom. Tiffany made a phone call while Milo tended to Gadget.

Gadget said, "The main symbol was 'creator' or 'mother' I think. I'm sorry, Milo. It's foggier now than before. I just can't remember anything else about any of it."

Miriam came back to the car and sat next to Gadget. Gadget looked out of it and Miriam looked worried. Miriam asked, "Honey? Any thoughts about things? "

Gadget started crying and said quietly, "Oh, fooey. I'm crying again. I'm just so tired."

Tiffany and Larry came back and they buckled in. Tiffany said, "We're going someplace different. I know a neuro-surgeon who can be trusted and is an expert in cybernetic implants. He's only fifteen minutes from here."

Zoe grumped as they pulled out into traffic,"Why would mister corporate zero turn my sister, Molly into a mouse? This is insane. Why a mouse? Why not put some kind of mind-control chip or something?"

Milo shrugged and said, "I don't know. There must be reasons. Maybe alien reasons. We don't honestly know even the tip of the iceberg on this. It's BIG. Noone except Maximilian Matamoros knows how big."

"Molly was excited, giddy actually, about working for Matamoros. She felt it was a huge responsibility to do a good job", Miriam paused for a moment and sighed, "She felt it was worth her life and the 'future generations of mankind would hold our work in judgement'. She never explained WHAT she worked on, but she complained she would never hear it. The spoken language, that is. She made one comment I never figured out. She said, even so over all the time, she still couldn't hear it. 'Humans can't reach that far.' "

Gadget squeak-mailed a word the made everyone's ears hurt. She giggled and sighed, "I can reach that far now."

Milo looked nervous as they drove up to a large chain-link fence with razor-wire at the top of the fences. There were a pair of men with small quad-barreled rifles behind thick barricades. Tiffany presented her ID to one of them. The man looked in and waved them through the gates.

They were being shown through an electrified fence at some compound in the outskirts of Atlanta, Georgia. Milo was nervous about the security arrangements, especially after they drove though a set of blast-doors into an underground bunker.

They got out and Gadget was led to a wheelchair and helped into it by a nurse. They went into the interior where they were met by a thirtyish man in a dark suit, that hugged Tiffany. She smiled broadly and said ,"Hello, Jimmy. I understand you have some friends that want to meet my friends?"

He nodded and smiled. Larry came up to Jimmy and they grabbed each other and grinned like fools.

Tiffany turned towards her group and said, "Oh, I'm sorry! This is my brother-in-law, James Williams. He works for the Government."

The inner door of the complex slid aside as Widget said, "I don't know ,Dale! They said someone...."

She trailed off as she smiled at Gadget and Milo. Neko ran over and hugged Four and Milo. Dale came over hugged Four. Widget came over to Gadget an held her hand and Gadget wept openly. Widget stroked Gadget's face and said, "...AND this is the good news. The bad news is that UTX captured Fidget and Chase. We don't really know what is going on. So how did you guys end up at a FBI safe-house?"

Larry just grinned and Tiffany smiled.

Tiffany said, "Didn't I say I was related to an Assistant Administrator of the Federal Bureau of Investigation? He's in charge of investigating UTX as of yesterday. We pulled some strings."

Gadget groaned and Milo shook his head. After a moment he remarked, "My head hurts!"

Gadget said softly, "Mine, too."

Widget said, "You know—we will have to go to the Belize Replication Facility and find and rescue Chase Victor and Fidget."

Milo said in disgust, "Life just got complicated."

Neko grinned and said happily, "Nah! Life has always been complicated! Your attitudes just caught up with life is all! Cats already knew this. That's why we don't like people like Matamoros. Cats rule the world. We don't like competition!" She giggled.

Gadget smiled sadly and waved to the nurse and said as she was wheeled into the complex, "I'm ready for my new brain, now."

–To Be Continued--


	5. The River of Time

Chapter 5 : The River of Time

Atlanta

"I'm ready for my new brain", Dale said miserably and sat down on the floor.

Anthony Fong ,Widget and Neko-Ney stopped walking on their way from breakfast. Their FBI handler, Special Agent Leia Brahms stopped and looked at Dale. She brushed her short chestnut colored bangs out of her eyes and frowned at the replicant chipmunk.

She looked at Widget and Neko and asked, "Does he do this a lot?"

Anthony was waving a hand in from of Dale's face, to no response. Neko shrugged and looked at Dale suspiciously, her ears twitching , while sniffing at him. Neko-Ney was suddenly was very jumpy.

Widget couldn't guess what spooked her this time. Widget glared at Dale and said, "Dale! Straighten up! What the heck is wrong with you?"

He didn't acknowledge Widget or even look at Neko or Anthony. "I don't....my brain isn't right. I need a new one."

Neko hackled up and circled behind him. Dale blinked and said, "I forgot how to sleep."

Widget looked at Leia, who looked back equally alarmed. Anthony backed up, feeling creepy by both how Neko and Dale were acting. Widget asked Dale, "What do to mean? You lay down, close your eyes and shut down your higher functions."

"My higher functions read as off-line. I need a new brain. I'm ready for my new brain." Dale said in the same exhausted dead-pan voice.

Neko batted him in the back of his head with her ears down, and jumped back. Dale sat there unmoving and blinked. Anthony wondered if it were really bright to get involved with Neko-Ney or not.

Widget blinked and said to Leia, "No–he doesn't do this all the time." Neko pounced on Dale ,biting and kicking him a couple of times half-heartedly and then leapt off of him in a split-second. Dale lay there, staring at the ceiling, while Neko came up curiously and sniffed his toes. Widget put a hand on her face and turned red and muttered, "SHE on the other hand....is like this all the time!" Anthony could help but feel sorry for the giant faux chipmunk.

Neko crouched on all fours and looked at Dale and pronounced, "Dale is broken!" She jumped up to her feet and shook her head. " Insufficient Primary Control Program operating parameters. Buffer of P-C-P substrate has over-run his system. Poor Dale!" Neko stood up and dusted off her hands and said with finality, "The lights are on, and Dale has left the building! What's for breakfast?"

Widget blinked and her eyes teared up a little and she glared at Neko. "Don't you feel anything at all for him?"

Neko looked distracted and then shook her head. "Nope. Didn't really know him. Fought alright. Not good enough to save Fidget or Chase. He's a brain-dead yokel ,now. So what?" She came over to Anthony for reassurance and he petted her. She purred and rubbed her head against his shoulder. She kissed him on the cheek and bounded over Dale's unresponsive body.

Leia frowned and called Milo on her cell-phone. "Mister Finch, the Dale Unit-One just went off-line in the hallway. You better come take a look."

He came out from a room at the end of the hallway and ran up. He pulled out the portable tester from his pocket and plugged it into Dale's DNI-UTC plug in the back of the giant chipmunk's head.

Neko looked over his shoulder and said quietly, "Abraham Lincoln called Micky Mouse and the line's dead. Buffer Over-run! Crash-boom-buffer-bang."

She smiled at him as he glowered at her and growled, "Do you mind?"

She smiled more and said quietly and said quietly, "No. Not at all! You could. ...reinitialize Dale's P-C-P and hope he don't tear into ya! You sure got a way of charming people!"

Widget rolled her eyes and shrugged. She looked at Dale sadly, and said, "She's annoying all to heck and gone, but she is correct. After the marathon debriefing session with Gadget, there is no doubt what the outcome would be. Dale would attack you, Milo."

He read on the Diagnostic tool-set, 'Primary Control Program Buffer Over-run. Insufficient underlay of experience for independent operations. System has crashed. Buffer over-run 46! Primary Control Program to reboot from control cortex Y/N?' He clicked the 'NO' icon and stood up.

Milo suppressed the urge to kick Dale while he was down. "Dammit! Just like Chip! His system failed after the head shot. He wouldn't reboot with P-C-P assistance. I don't know what was moving him without the P-C-P ON!"

Milo yawned and came up to Widget. "I need to get a baseline on your P-C-P Buffer. I am curious to see what's going on."

She paused and pulled her hair out of the way. He plugged her in and he took a reading. After a few moments he frowned and shook his head. He had a strange look on his face and said, "You have an AVERAGE Buffer over-run of 1. Dale has a steady 46 now. Widget–why does your's oscillate from a -1 to a positive 2 ?"

Widget shrugged and looked uncomfortable and said, "That is the same level of failure that Two had–isn't it?"

Anthony looked at Neko and asked, "Is that the reason you kept looking at Dale at breakfast? Special 'cat-sense' that Dale was going to fall apart?"

Neko took Anthony's arm as they went into Gadget's impromptu hospital room. Gadget was laying down, with her upper-body elevated, with an IV drip going in her left arm and Miriam holding onto the right hand. The other bed had a cat-napping Zoe on it. Larry was asking Gadget about her earliest memories at the Belize Replication Facility.

Neko put a finger to her lips and chuckled, "Ix-nay on the at-cay ense-say! I'm a cat-goddess. I have to keep up appearances!"

Just in the hallway behind the two of them, Widget looked worried and Milo thought about his wording a little bit.

Milo patted her on the back as they went into Gadget's room at the end of the hallway. "That was with an intact P-C-P. If your P-C-P was reinitialized, your Buffer over-run would fall to less than a measurable amount."

Widget looked stressed. She muttered, "Great. That's just ...uh...great. Long as I think with someone else's mind, I'm fine."

Gadget looked exhausted and looked over from where Miriam and Larry were. She looked grimly at Milo and Milo said, "Sorry. Dale's system just crashed. I was afraid of that. He suffered terminal Buffer over-run."

Miriam looked horrified, "That nice red-nosed chipmunk died?"

Milo shook his head. He frowned and said, "It's difficult to explain to the lay-man. His system crashed. I can reboot his character file, but he'll act different. He has a full database in the control cortex that can reboot his persona, but his personality is on his substrate, also called his Buffer. Call it his experience with learning situations to fill in the blanks of the P-C-P. He still needs the main program to HAVE the blanks filled in of, though."

He looked sourly at Neko who was sniffing Gadget's face and said in irritation, "Though some here are all blanks."

Neko turned and yawned at him. It struck him as more primal than tiredness, it was a threat. 'Keep going and I will bite you'.

He sighed and said to Neko, "Come here and let me get a Buffer base-line on you, too."

Neko stuck out her tongue and said, "Get stuffed!"

Widget and Gadget were surprised and appalled. Miriam was amused . Larry and Leia watched in intense interest.

Milo was floored. He said, "I have to get a base-line on your buffer over-run number."

Neko leapt over Gadget's bed and she shook her head and asked, "What'll you give me for it?"

Milo sat down and shook his head. He gritted his teeth and said slowly, "I don't have time for this."

Neko bounced on the balls of her feet and grinned, "I do!"

Miriam laughed and said to Milo, "Try the magic words." Everyone's eyes were on Miriam. She smiled sweetly. Milo looked from the amused Gadget to everyone else. He swallowed hard. Everyone else apparently got it except him.

Milo looked completely blank.

Miriam said in irritation, "I should sock you, Milo"

Neko started giggling and said enthusiastically, "Yeah, yeah! Sock'im, SOCK'IM! POW! Right in tha KISSAH!"

Milo groaned and looked sick. Widget smiled at him and she whispered to him, "I don't get it either." Widget squeezed his arm and he looked bleak.

Miriam said, "Neko-Ney, if you'll please come over here and let him take his reading, I'll get you some salmon."

Neko came over and sat down in front of Milo. "No probs, Gadget's mom! Gimme the fish!"

Miriam said, " 'Magic words'? Please and thank you? Oh, come on ,Milo!"

Milo rolled his eyes and squeezed out, "Thank you, Neko."

She chortled and gloated, "I get a 'thank-you' AND a fish! Mmmmmwahahahahah!"

Gadget smiled ,but was exhausted from retelling her tale to Widget and Neko and from staying up all night. She was feeling strange from the drugs the doctors there put her in her I-V to inhibit the swelling of her brain. She suddenly realized that something was missing. She watched as Milo jacked into Neko's skull with the diagnostic probe. Widget still looked uneasy, and Miriam was still holding Gadget's hand. Zoe was finally asleep from the thrilling retelling; though she acting uninterested, she was captivated by the adventure of it.

Leia was asking Larry about Gadget recalling Two's memories. Larry was professional about the retelling. Tiffany had just left to go lay down, but that wasn't it. Gadget couldn't place what was wrong. Then it hit her. She had forgotten the weird dreams that she had.

Miriam looked at Gadget and Miriam squeezed Gadget's hand and asked, "What's wrong? You have an odd look."

"I have just completely forgotten the dreams I had underwater."'Gadget said in consternation.

Milo looked up and said,"Neko's Buffer over-run reading is a fairly steady -2, which frankly surprises me that she acts so unstable and actually is so stable."

Neko-Ney turned and glared at him and bit him on the hand and ran out of the room.

He jumped up and yelled, "OW! Shit! Damn cat!" Miriam put a hand over her face and chuckled. Gadget and Widget giggled. Larry turned away to smirk and Leia frowned.

"What way do you mean 'unstable'? She apparently acts very cat-like to my limited observations. VERY cat-like." Special Agent Leia Brahms was captivated by the actions of these peculiar replicants. They didn't act like any she had ever seen.

Milo was shaking his hand, frowning, and checking for blood from where Neko nipped him at and continued, "....But I am not surprised that Gadget has 'reforgotten' the dreams. This indicates a program barrier in the buffer." He looked surprised and blinked and exclaimed, "Wait a minute! I am surprised! She has a live brain! Dammit! I keep forgetting. If the auto-repair on the CPU's fix a physical problem, everything returns to how it WAS before the accident. The human brain doesn't have a super-aggressive regeneration procedure like the Doorways-CPU Bio-ware."

Miriam called the neuro-surgeon, Doctor Fisher, who had treated Gadget for her concussion.

It took him a couple of minutes to set up the portable MRI machine in her room. After some moments he was astounded and turned to them. He was a plain-spoken man in his late fifties and looked tired, but now ,was looking shocked. He sighed in surprise and shook his head in disbelief.

He said, "I do not believe it! The difference is ...well, shocking! Look at this." He put up a three-dimensional image of Gadget's brain with red and orange splotches on it on the PTV in the room. "That was from when you brought her in here twelve hours ago."

He put up the image from the MRI machine which showed grays and whites and pinks. He said, "Now--Nothing-- but healthy, undamaged tissue! You brought her in with a class three concussion! It didn't get up and walk out. That is a strange brain in that head. I'm not sure what healed her brain. If she's a plague victim—she is well past the terminal stage. Her brain isn't quite functionally human anymore. It's similar to a Doorway-CPU according to Mister Finch. I don't know what it is. It acts like a human brain AND has DNA that definitely belongs to one Miss Molly Hackensack. That was confirmed from the mitochondrial DNA test we just finished.."

He looked uncomfortable and said, "That is Molly Hackensack's brain. I don't know how it is still alive."

Milo stood up with a look of horror on his face. "There hasn't been a case Lefrene's Syndrome–a NEW one in TEN years! You said 'if she's a plague victim...' "

Everyone in the room was on their feet instantly and staring at Gadget in fear. Neko was the only calm one in the room. Gadget giggled nervously and waved a hand and said merrily, "Oh–that! If I was infectious ....I would have caused one by now! Golly! I have been a Rescue Ranger for FOUR years and never given anyone a sniffle!"

Neko shook herself and beamed, "I already knew! She doesn't SMELL infectious! Unlike Leia, who should be sick by tonight. I smelt it! I'm a magic cat-goddess. It's a miracle! You there, Miriam! Give me a salmon! Roasted one, too! Mmmmmmmmmmmmmm!"

Widget frowned and said to Neko, "Oi! Don't you ever shut up?"

Neko looked thoughtful and then shook her head. "Nope! Not when I got something important to say!"

Larry cleared his throat, and said in a commanding way, "We're all tired and need to sleep. Regular people and replicants, both. Let the experts worry about where Maximilian Matamoros may have gotten the first live sample of the Silico-organic plague in ten years."

Gadget's heavy breathing caught people off-guard as she fell right to sleep. Miriam smiled and several others shook their heads.

Larry rolled his eyes with a tired smile and said softly, "Sleeping conditions are a little rough. We'll get a rolling bed in here for you, Miriam" Miriam nodded. "Anthony, Milo and I will bunk in one room. Two beds and one sleeping bag. I get a damned bed at my age and you two get to flip a coin for the floor!" They looked unhappy and nodded. He looked at Widget and Neko. "You two get the last room."

Widget looked askance at Neko-Ney and then frowned. "With the fubar furball?"

Neko-Ney was joyous. She said, "Oh, Yah! A room and room-service!"

Larry said, "No room service! Shut up and get out, now. Gadget or ..ah...Molly needs to sleep."

They split up and were shown their various rooms. Milo lost the toss and ended up on the floor in a sleeping bag. He thought that had to be fate.

Neko and Widget didn't even pull the covers down and just fell out on top of them.

Gadget got up first feeling restless and undercharged. She went into the bathroom, and figured out the shower fixtures by trial and error and took a shower. They had taken the IV out and she put on slippers and the stretch pants with the hole cut for her tail and the v-neck pull over-shirt they gave her. She moved silently to not disturb Miriam or Zoe. She kept thinking of them like that, not as MOM and Zoe. It still struck her as odd.

She went out into the hallway where a man in a anti-ballistic vest and helmet was standing guard with a 4.65mm Makarov assault rifle/grenade launcher combo. He didn't quite point it at her, just in her direction. She closed the door behind her and stood carefully in the hall. She said quietly, "Golly...uh...I'm hungry and would like a grilled cheese sandwich? I didn't want to ....be shot...which would disturb people....and where is the kitchen? Or such? Vending machine? Oh, shoot! Scratch vending machine. I don't have any money."

He looked in his mid-twenties and was trying to look tough and trying to not be amused. He smiled and showed dimples to Gadget. She liked that..

She smiled broadly and stuck out a hand and said in a bright voice, "Hiya! I'm Gadget! Who are you?"

He burst out laughing and said, "Oh God! You're the important guest I'm protecting? Aren't you just the cutest little thing!"

She batted her eyelashes at him and preened. He was very cute in that muy machismo Latino way. She said in a coy voice, "Thank you....Who EVER you are."

He laughed and shook his head. "Ramon Perez. I'm supposed to call for your handler if you or any of the other replicants got up."

She laughed and rocked back and forth on her slippered feet. "Handler? Makes me sound like a part of a trained animal act! Besides....I'm not a replicant! I'm a real girl...in the replicant body. I mean a brain. A brain inside this body. I mean I have a live HUMAN brain inside of this...Ahem...You were telling me where the kitchen is?"

He held up a finger and said, "Wait a moment. Leia? One's up. Named Gadget."

After a moment, the young woman came out from an office near the stairs up and came over to Gadget. Gadget gave her a smile and shook her head and said, "All this fuss over a toasted cheese sandwich! Hiya, Special Agent Brahms! Golly. I hope I didn't pull you away from something important. I just wanted a toasted cheese sandwich. I don't want to be a bother."

Special Agent Leia Brahms held a hand up in bemusement and laughed, "I think it's the most natural thing in the world that a replicant mouse girl wants a real cheese sandwich. Follow me to the kitchen, please. I must say, Miss Hackensack...."

"Gadget, please. If you must, then 'Miss Hackwrench'. I don't FEEL like Molly Hackensack." Gadget interrupted with a tiny shiver..

"Miss Hackwrench, then...I find that the replicants moving without crashing their systems and NO Primary Control Program are very interesting to me. I find YOUR case to be of greatest personal interest to me. I was born with a genetic disease that destroys my long bones and have had such replaced with cybernetic replacements. Virtually my entire skeletal structure and major muscular groups were replaced with the cutting edge cybernetics." Leia smirked and whispered, "You aren't the only one to lift a car around here."

Gadget shrugged and said, "I know that. You weigh almost 240 lbs and have 40 power units, I weigh 130 pounds and have 400 power units. I can see into the low ultra-violet and high infra-red spectrums. I have faster reaction times than a human. They did something to my neural connection speed that made it very fast. Neko-Ney flipped over TWO armored cars in combat and is slightly faster than me. If we meant harm, we'd have done it by now! Golly, all I want is a cheese sandwich."

Gadget was wearing her most ingratiating smile at the end of that. Gadget looked back the hallway and waved to Ramon. Leia was put off by her off-handed way of speaking plainly and sounding so cute while doing so. Leia caught herself sneezing explosively. Gadget jumped back out of the way and laughed. "Gosh! Hey! You aren't coming down with something, are you? Neko said...."

Leia opened the kitchen door and said, "Here! I need a paper towel!"

Leia ran in and got a paper towel. Gadget followed her inside. Gadget found the sandwich bread, found some cheddar cheese in the refrigerator and a skillet, while Leia sneezed in the hall-way. Gadget experimented her way through making the sandwich. She got out the skillet and put it in and turned on the heat.

Leia came over, sniffling and asked, "Never had one before?"

Gadget nodded. "I liked the one I had. I want another." She looked at Leia curiously. Gadget frowned and said sourly, "I left out some important step along the way, didn't I?"

Leia laughed, and pulled out the butter.. She smirked and said, "You might want to butter the pan."

Gadget was floored. She threw her hands in the air and sighed, "For the love of Pete! I was so busy thinking about Ramon....I mean...uh...JUST thinking about things....AH FOOEY!"

She went to the fridge universal cooking panel completely flustered and looked up recipes. It replayed how to make a fried cheese sandwich and variations. Leia went over and snatched off the pan before it caught fire. Gadget looked surprised and said , "Oops. Sorry. Got distracted reading about what I should be building. Let me try again."

Leia laughed and shook her head. She raised an eyebrow at Gadget and whispered for effect, "Ramon doesn't have a girl-friend."

Gadget almost dropped the frying-pan. "Ah! No? Uh...gulp...Mmm-nnnn! O-K."

This time she sauteed onions and put them on the cheese and buttered the pan and made her sandwich to perfection. Gadget looked at Leia and offered her half. "Here. You kept me from burning the place down. Or worse! The fire alarm would have gone off and woke everyone else up and boy–they would have been grouchy! Gosh!"

Leia laughed and took it and a napkin. "For your second sandwich, this is pretty good. I like the sauteed onions. You cut them into small strands, but didn't mince them. Why?"

Gadget looked thoughtful. She frowned and said, "I don't really know. I didn't see them on a menu or recipe that I remember seeing. I just thought that the onions would bring out the flavor of the cheese. I mean ...why am I am drinking grape juice with the sandwich? I never drank grape juice before. How did I know?" Gadget drank the dark concord grape juice deeply. "AH! Golly, that is stupendous! How did I know? Maybe it's...a memory of something I don't have anymore. Of being Molly Hackensack, maybe? I don't know, really."

Leia asked with a smile and a sniffle, "Who do you answer as? Who are you?" Leia sneezed again.

Gadget smiled and answered, "As Gadget Hackwrench. I guess Neko pegged you with coming down with something. The nose must know."

"I'm a goddess. It's a miracle."

Gadget leapt away with an ,"Eeek", flipping backward into the sink and hitting her head on one of the cupboards with a thunk. Leia leapt sideways, falling over a chair and drew her machine pistol and pointed it at Neko-Ney. Gadget held her head and shouted, "Good Golly!"

Neko-Ney blinked and smiled at them, "Whassup guys? Jeez, you mugs is jumpy as a herd of cats!"She opened the fridge and started prowling, "What's good to eat?"

Gadget jumped down and helped Leia up. Leia got up and was tense from the adrenaline surge. She swore and holstered her pistol. Gadget looked at Neko and asked, "HOW did you sneak up on us?"

Neko got out the smoked ham, licking her lips. "Cats sneak up on stuff. I snuck up on Widget and Fidget a lot in the house. Widget hates it. Fidget laughed." She looked really sad and stabbed the ham fitfully and said quietly, " I miss her laughter. I couldn't save them. I thought they got killed. Chase gave me fish and thought how I ate potato chips cute." Neko looked up and her eyes were filled with tears. She sniffed and asked, "What are those mean people gonna do with'em?"

Gadget came over and hugged her. She said softly to Neko, "I don't know. They figured that they needed both. If they were going to kill them–they'd be dead like poor Doctor Lassiter. We WILL get them BACK. I swear it!" Gadget and Neko-Ney looked at Special Agent Brahms.

Leia looked away from them. She said quietly, "I'll bring to bear all the pressure I can. I agree that UTX needs to made to pay for what they have done."

Widget came in and said sarcastically, " '....though 'WE' ,the AMERICAN government, won't get our fat butts to save your buds, because this only concerns a couple or six deaths and some replicants..' "

Leia held up a hand and said stronger, "Look here! This is SERIOUS! And I know you are angry! This matter pisses me off ,too. This will be handled. We will get Chase Victor back. You all need to decompress some. We need to get some information about what is going on, and where they might be held. We have...sources. We'll find her."

Neko sighed and picked up the half-a-ham she cut herself and held it up. Yep, you're right. Ham helps a little though. So you got spies on the inside of UTX? Bwaahaha! That's a good one. Anything is possible, I suppose."

Widget frowned and looked at Neko and said, "You aren't going to eat that whole hunk are you?"

Neko's ears folded down and she said irritatedly, "You complain about my chips now this. Let me be sad and eat ham!"

Gadget asked in a high-pitched voice, "What about the gosh-darn potato-chips?"

Widget said in a disgusted voice, "It is so yucky! She licks the salt off of each and then crunches them as loudly as possible. She doesn't just eat them!"

Gadget looked at Neko astounded and then at Widget with her mouth open. Gadget held up a hand between them and came up to Widget and flicked her hard on the forehead with her middle finger.

Widget Staggered back and put a hand on her bruised forehead and shouted, "OW! What'dya do that for?"

Gadget got up in Widget's face and said ,"Get over yourself. We are all frazzled and falling apart. We have to hold it together for Chase and Fidget. Forget Neko's chip eating! Goodness! We have more important things to keep track of."

Widget looked unsettled and blinked several times. She clenched her fists and then finally sighed. Widget looked over at Neko and whispered hoarsely, "I'm sorry, Neko."

She smiled at Widget and offered her a bite of the huge ham chunk, and said, "You can have a bite. There are parts I haven't slobbered on yet. If people give you a choice of sadness with and without ham, pick sadness with ham. Sadness is always better with ham."

Leia added, "And with friends, too–it appears."

They ate ham and Leia suggested mustards to go with ham. Widget loved horseradish mustard, while Gadget loved honey-mustard. Neko's try of horse-radish caused her to lick the taste of it on her tongue off on a chair-back, much to the other's laughter.

It was later in the afternoon, the laughter had evaporated as Milo ran another check on their Buffer over-run numbers. Neko's was a steady -2 on the diagnostic. No change at all. However, Widget's was averaging in the 2 range.

Special Agent Leia Brahms, Doctor Walter Fisher, Larry WIlliams, Anthony Fong and Miriam were in the medical laboratory as Milo used some of the diagnostic tools they had taken from the back of Doctor Fairweather's aircar.

Widget sighed bleakly, "I don't have much time left." Milo looked over at Gadget and shrugged. Neko looked over ad Widget and came over and licked Widget's face.

Neko whispered tenderly to Widget, "Do you want some ham?"

Widget looked angry, then shocked and then hugged Neko and cried softly. Neko hugged back and said, "I guess 'no ham'?"

Gadget said, "We have to do something!"

Milo gestured her over to a chair and pulled out the diagnostic tool out again and said to Gadget, "I want to get a diagnostic reading from you, Miss 'Live Brain of 2083'."

Miriam looked confused. "Why? She has a live brain! She doesn't have a computer-buffer."

Neko said, "Or a floor-buffer, either!"

Milo said in a curious voice, "There is a translator on the tool, and I have NO idea what in hell it will show." Gadget nodded with a resolute expression on her face and moved her hair out of the way.

Doctor Fisher said, "It would be a good thing to find out. I've never seen the kind of infiltration into a human brain as in 'Gadget's brain. It has more cybernetic implantation than any brain I have record of. I want to know what exactly is in that head, and why does UTX invest so much interest in making her brain ACT like a Doorways-CPU?"

They crowded around the read-out and he jacked it into her DNI-UTC plug on the base of her skull. Milo pointed at some figures for Miriam and said, "This is the host communicating with the probe. Probe identified host as Gadget Unit number 4. Query, query ....blah,blah,blah. ...P-C-P is off-line, do you want reboot? We hit NO! And Buffer over-run is -1! Well isn't that wonderful? Now input the passcode and get the straight numbers!"

The bar graph jumped up into the red and down back into the green. Milo said, "It's jumping around so fast, I can't tell what it is. It is jumping from positive 30 to negative 30....so I guess it averages zero ."

Miriam looked at it and said, "Hey! It looks sort of like one of those bio-rhythm things, except that Widget's is a little slower., I think. What does it mean?"

"I have no idea. It doesn't have a rhythm other than it jumps around. I don't know what happened between last night and now, to cause such a big jump." Milo looked worried, and Widget looked ill. She went over and sat down, looking lonely.

Doctor Fisher said after a moment of thought, "It looks like an abstract EEG read-out. Possibly reading on emotional/psychological states?"

Neko-Ney came over and said in a small voice, "I argued with Widget over potato chips after we slept. We had nightmares. And didn't sleep long. Woke up edgy."

Gadget jumped up and exclaimed, "That's something! We aren't sharing dreams! Maybe that is something that we need to keep from crashing. I've really missed it."

Neko-Ney nodded as Widget said slowly, "I've had terrible nightmares every night. I have trouble sleeping."

Anthony suddenly interjected, "That's what Dale said before he crashed. He forgot how to sleep, remember?"

Dr. Fisher said, "That leads to psychosis in humans, much less the plain old impairment in driving and thinking. Who would have thought that replicants need to dream? Is it the human dreaming in the mix that adds spice to the replicant's dreams?"

Milo looked shocked, and sat down in misery. "That's probably it. It's 'dream deprivation' or something. The Disney super-computer is the one that monitored that subsystem. I don't know if I can replicate something that complex."

Gadget looked determined said strongly to Milo, grabbing him by the arm, "You can, because you have to, even if we have to go to Tandy Shack and get a DNI-UTX cable with a splitter built in it and just plug it in jack-port to port. We are not going to lose Widget! You got that, Milo? You get that point?"

"I'll do what I can. God, this is science by the seat of my pants! I'm going to need parts. Let me try to do up a parts list and see what we have here and see what we need to fill in",Milo looked nervous, but determined.

Miriam looked quite confused. She held up a hand and asked, "I'm lost. Why don't you reinitialize the Primary program thingamabob? Wouldn't that keep her from crashing?"

Milo shook his head and frowned. He struggled to put his thoughts together, and Gadget looked thoughtful. Gadget said to her, "Look at it this way, Mom. It's the difference between freedom of action and slavery. Right now she is free to explore her 'Leslie Watts' memories and act the way she wants. If the Primary Control Program was in control, she would default to the Gadget personality and act inside those parameters! She couldn't shoot bad-guys, and she would have parts of her experience overwritten by the P-C-P, so she could act like Gadget Hackwrench. It would be like being possessed by her. We need to save the independant person who used to be Leslie Watts and who is now called Widget."

Anthony Fong looked at Widget and over at Gadget and Neko. "Couldn't one of you girls keep a shadow copy of Widget in your central cortex like the Unit Two did of Four that time? Or did I get that wrong? Then Milo could turn on the PCP til she's alright and then turn it off and reintroduce the info back into her brain?"

Milo frowned sourly. "If we had a NORMAL replicant, I'd have at least an idea of what that would do! Neko doesn't even HAVE a Primary Control Program, and Gadget has a live brain. Running a shadow-copy of the Buffer information destabilized Two and would have crashed her eventually. I have no clue what it would do to either Neko's CPU data, or to Gadget's brain. Don't get me wrong—IT IS an idea. Just a dangerous idea we'll keep in mind til we've exhausted all other possibilities. I hope we don't have to find out."

Gadget said grimly, "If we DO need to do, I'll do it. Leslie Watts was human. Neko-Ney may be in greater danger than me to put the ghost-copy of the Buffer info into her. I...don't think it may be logical....but it feels right. Human information to a human brain. Who knows? It might help both of us."

Milo looked serious and squeezed her hand and said in a very serious tone, "It might give you a nervous breakdown, or even destroy your personality. I think this is very premature to discuss this possibilty. We haven't even discussed the possible problems of overwriting this AMOUNT of Buffer information. It might collapse the system and need a reinstallation. That would be tantamount to brain death! We are in new lands here."

Miriam frowned and went, "Alrighty, then. Golly, this is frightenly complicated!"

Gadget looked at her and laughed. " 'GOLLY'? Golly! You sounded like me!"

Neko batted the back of Gadget's head. "Stop laughing! Widget is sad! This isn't about you, fer once, ya mook!"

Widget said in a tremulous voice, "Just let me crash. I don't want to be a bother. I don't want anyone else to endanger themselves for me." She looked young and lost. Her eyes were filled with tears, that she kept blinking away."

Gadget stroked Widget's cheek and grabbed Miriam's arm with her other hand.

Gadget announced to Miriam, "Widget is more of a sister to me, than Zoe is. I don't really know Zoe. I know Widget. She IS family! She needs me, Mom! Needs us. Do you understand?"

Miriam nodded, feeling really put on the spot, but feeling charitable to the little, lost mouse girl. Miriam flapped her arms once, not quite a shrug and gave Widget a huge hug and swung her around. "Welcome to the family, Widget!"

Miriam looked at Gadget, as Widget started weeping on Miriam's shoulder, and said, "You know...I'm only doing this to see the look on Zoe's face. You come from a family of fighters."

Neko-Ney said to Miriam, "Give her a back-rub ,Mommy! And give me a SALMON! You promised! Mmmmmmmmm, salmon!"

Miriam looked at Neko in mock out-rage and said to her, "Now you wait one minute, young lady! You can take care of your own self! You'll get your fish! I didn't forget you."

Milo said, "I better get on the parts and programs list. This is going to take some work."

Leia looked at Milo with her eyebrows raised and shook her head. She said to him, "They are...something else, aren't they? They react fully human. They make you react to them on a human-to-human level. That's really impressive."

Milo shook his head. "No–inexplicable! Dale was atypical, but what usually happens eventually. Neko-Ney is unbelievable, Gadget is anomalous, and Widget is inexplicable. I'm trying to going to try to fix the inexplicable and make her understandable...at least to me."

Neko slapped her hands together and shouted, "Alright, you mooks! Lets move like we have a purpose! Let's get stuff together to fix Widget and get me a fish!"

Gadget reached over and whacked Neko in the head with her open hand. Everyone laughed.

The Yucatan Peninsula

Chase woke up to some one laughing in the distance. A heavy door closed some where Her head was pounding and her senses seemed distorted. She laid there for a long time staring at the peach canopy of the canopy bed she was in. She felt the silk sheets she was between. There was a warm body next to her on the left side. She had trouble moving even her eyes.

Fidget asked in a tremulous voice, "Chase? Are you awake? I can't tell where we are. It's been almost twenty-six hours since the attack. I can see and blink and talk. Other motor control appears impaired. You are on my right side. Can you move? I'm scared."

Chase's heart was pounding in her chest already. She was trembling harder to hear that. She levered herself up and looked around. She was wearing some antique looking underwear and Fidget was next to her. Fidget was wearing a violet flannel nightgown and looked frightened. Chase looked around the room and felt weak and very dizzy. There was an uncomfortable opulence to the place. There were drapes on the windowless walls. There were appointed chairs of leather and tables of polished wood. There was a mini-fridge and PTV and door going to a bathroom. She could just see the bath-tub.

Fidget said, "Chase–you have a DNI-UTC plug now."

To her horror, she felt the back of her head and felt the cold plasti-flesh rim of the metal plug. She felt like throwing up. She pulled herself to the bed-edge opposite Fidget and vomited. She had dry heaves for a couple of minutes.. She got herself under control in a few minutes. She was trembling violently and felt violated. She didn't know what god-awful things they had put into her head and the thought of being a puppet made her ill.

She wept and punched the bed-side.

Fidget cried ,too. She said, "I'm sorry, Chase. I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to upset you. Don't cry."

Chase turned and looked at Fidget still laying there in the same position. Chase blinked back tears with a cold feeling in the pit of her stomach and asked Fidget, "Why aren't you moving? Can't you move?"

Fidget blinked and looked terrified. She said in a high-pitched, terror-filled voice, "I already told you! Don't you remember? No. I can't move!"

"Sorry, Fidget. I-I'm a little bit out of things. Effect of the surgery, most likely, and maybe the anesthetic." Chase checked Fidget's body and limbs for damage and then her neck, feeling carefully for breaks. She felt something odd at the DNI-UTC plug at the base of Fidget's skull. Chase said to Fidget, "Baby, I have to turn you over to see what's attached to your DNI-UTC plug. What do your internal diagnostics tell you?"

"Nothing useful. It just says that most of my muscle groups are off-line. I figured that already...not being able to move." Fidget tried to sound upbeat, but was too terrified to sound other than just panicked.

Chase turned her over and discovered a red plastic button in Fidget's DNI-UTC plug. She noted the set-screw holding it in place and would bet good money, there wasn't allen wrench that would fit it in the room. It was a DNI-restraint. It was a simple device to immobilize replicants and many of the cyber-psychotic. It simply disengaged some of the volitional muscle-groups with a simple jammer. It was viewed by many as a peaceful way to handle dangerous psychotics or uncooperative replicants.

She trembled in relief that she didn't have similar inserted into her own plug now. She felt guilt from her relief and tried to remove the plug from Fidget's DNI-UTC jack with her fingernails. After several minutes, she had to give up. It was set in there and tightened down. She said to Fidget, "I'm sorry, honey....I can't get it out. It's a DNI-restraint. I don't know why they think you are dangerous."

Fidget said uncomfortably, "The only danger I pose is peeing on myself. I got to GO!"

Chase said, "Hang on. Let me get you off the bed." Chase man-handled the limp Fidget into a carriable position, and picked her up with difficulty. Chase got her into the bathroom and onto the toilet fairly quickly, but had to hold her upright since she was completely limp, though with no mishaps along the way. Chase let Fidget tend to her business with a minimum of fuss and decided enough is enough. After putting Fidget back to bed, Chase picked up the phone and dialed the operator.

After a moment, a young woman's voice came on the phone and said, "Good afternoon, Ms. Victor. Do you wish to place a dinner order?"

"No, I DON"T!" Chase struggled not the scream and rant. As scared and violated as she felt, she hoped reason might prevail. "I want to go home. I want that DNI-restraint removed from my friend's neck. I want us both to leave here unharmed."

"I can't fill those menu items. For other items, the management will be consulted. You must recuperate first. That will take one to three days. Some anxiety is typical. I am a meal preparation and menu program. You will be checked on periodically by Doctors. There is no need for concern." The voice never faltered or changed in pitch. Chase despaired of the phone.

"No need for concern? Dammit", she trailed off, her tired voice cracking. Her stomach rumbled as she looked over at Fidget. Fidget looked so helpless and was chewing her lower lip.

Chase lowered her head. She said in an even voice, "I want to order breakfast. Two orders or scrambled eggs and ham. One chocolate milk, one coffee and one grape juice. Two orders of white bread, toasted."

"Yes, Ma'am. It will be delivered in 20-30 minutes." The automated system announced in it's unchanging pleasant tone.

Chase hung up and sighed. She looked over at Fidget and said quietly, "I ordered breakfast for both of us. I'll take care of you, Fidget. Taking care of you will be like taking care of a big baby."

Fidget whimpered and closed her eyes and said in a tiny whisper, "I don't want to be a big baby."

Chase smiled a little at that. "Oh no?" Chase choked back on asking Fidget about how she had been acting. "It'll be for only a couple of days, I hope. Let me get you upright for breakfast-time."

Fidget pouted and said sullenly, "I don't wanna be a bother!"

Chase shushed her and smiled at her. "Fidget. Look at me. You are not a bother. I help you now and if you get a chance...you help me. Or one of the others. That's how it is. You've ended up my responsibility, so I'll take care of you. Don't feel bad about things you can NOT affect. Trust me and I'll take care of you.."

Fidget made a face then stuck out her tongue. She blinked and said, "Aw fooey! I forgot–I can't even nod! Thank you, Chase ...even if I can't hug you, or anything."

Chase piled up the pillows behind her and fluffed them to an incline to support Fidget's upper body and keep her head upright. The door opened without fan-fare and an automated serving cart rolled into the room and stopped by the table. Out in the hall, Chase saw a UTX 210 security mech in a doorway.

Chase got off the bed and walked over to the serving cart. It raised it's lid and revealed a serving platter beneath it's domed top. She removed the serving platter and watched as the little cart rolled back out of the room and the door closed silently behind it..

Chase walked back over to the bed with the meal, just as she had ordered it. Fidget was frowning and complained, "I can't hear either. I couldn't hear the little rolling bot-thing, until the door opened. That smells wonderful! I am so hungry!"

Chase was appalled at how small the food servings were. The servings were practically mouse-sized. She still felt nauseous, so decided to let Fidget eat both minuscule servings. Chase actually derived some small satisfaction in hand-feeding Fidget. She was so hungry and appreciative of the attention and the food.

Near the end of 'breakfast', Fidget looked around and was appalled at how little was left. She looked at Chase and said, "I'm not eating anymore! You're too thin, Chase! You eat the rest. You have to take care of me. I use little energy laying about. You have to eat for yourself and me, too. Please."

Chase smiled and said, "Alright. I'll eat most of the next meal, alright? I'm feeling sick from the surgery, so I don't really have an appetite."

Fidget looked uncomfortable and said, "O-k! Most of the next meal! You promise?"

Chase looked guilty and said, "I promise! Now drink your juice, before it gets warm!"

Fidget stuck her tongue out at Chase. Chase laughed and 'made' Fidget drink the grape juice. Fidget slurped loud when she ran out. Afterwards, Chase wiped Fidget's face and went over and picked up the phone and dialed the operator.

"I'd like more breakfast, same orders as before." Chase was expecting a rebuff, but she had to find the limits, before she tried them.

"I'm sorry. You have expended your caloric intake allotment for the day." The voice was infuriatingly polite.

Chase was expecting something draconian, but she still felt the blood rush to her cheeks and her hands tightened on the pick-up like she was wringing someone's neck. "What in HELL are you blathering about? That was barely enough food to starve on! How are we supposed to get more food?"

"You should....get a job. Good bye." The program hung up on her. She didn't have to 'act' mad at that. She was furious.

Chase slammed the phone down and shouted, "You mechanized bitch! 'Get a job' doing what?"

Chase went back to bed and laid down next to Fidget. Fidget said quietly, "I'm sorry. I wouldn't have..."

"Stop it, Fidget. Don't worry about it." Chase looked up at her face and squeezed Fidget's arm. I'm tired. How is your recharge status?

Fidget frowned. "That's what's weird. Bio-power is 100% ! I'm completely healthy, but body power is zero. I'm strong as a normal human right now. I'm no danger to anyone."

Chase caught herself before she reacted. She blinked and said, "Hunh! That is weird. I don't know what they're doing." She closed her eyes and evened her breathing. She assumed Mister Matamoros was playing mind-games of some kind. Fidget is completely helpless. She was with Fidget. Fidget knows the Alien language in her Buffer. Fidget likes Chase. Fidget is dependant on Chase and in a period of intense grief. Fidget is vulnerable to suggestion.

Chase knew what the equation was. Fidget had. Matamoros wanted and was going to use Chase to get! Why didn't he just kill Chase, and strip the information from Fidget's mind? She assumed he would be willing to do what ever to achieve that end, but why the mind-games.

" 'Get a job' she said. Doing what?" Chase thought intensely about that. Maximilian Matamoros was a powerful man and controlled a lot of the world. Perhaps he wanted willing accomplices? Maybe he wanted her broken and begging for him to save her from starvation and willing to say or do anything. Why the DNI-UTC jack? She needed more information. It was his game, and if she had to play by his rules, she wanted to know what game they were playing.

She was going to have to wait and watch and behave very deliberately. If she could behave and not lose control.

Chase got off the bed and paced around the room, looking into corners and the bathroom and at the ceiling. She turned on the PTV and sat down on the bed nest to Fidget.

Chase wrinkled up her nose as she found out it showed only one channel, and said wryly, "It figures." She watched the UTX-TV channel for a moment and smirked at Fidget and said, "This is like cable-vision in Hell! There are 666 channels and never a damned thing on!"

Fidget blinked. "I don't get it."

Chase chuckled sadly and said softly, "That figures, too."

Atlanta

Widget said, "I don't get it."

Ramon laughed and said again, "That figures. Look, I'm fair at hand-ball and you're a replicant. You guys are like super-powered in comparison to us regular guys, right? You never played and I'd like to play with you. If you're up to it. I figure it might take your mind off your problems. When I'm depressed and worried and stuff, working out big-time helps me a lot."

Zoe nodded, "Running helps me."

Widget looked over at Gadget, who smiled encouragingly at her. Gadget said to her, "What do you have to lose? Might be a fair match. You should play with him. If it were fair, I would play with him!"

He smiled at Gadget, showing off his dimples and asked, "You'd play with me?"

Gadget was speechless and blushed. She giggled and batted her eyes at Ramon and then hid her face in her hands as Widget laughed and gave Gadget a push.

Zoe laughed and exclaimed, "Go Gadget!"

Neko and Milo watched from the kitchen. Gadget, Widget, Zoe and Ramon were in the lounge cutting up. Milo had taken a break from working on the 'dream-machine' and came in to make a sandwich for lunch and watched the interplay with distaste. He hated guys like Ramon. Guys that were that slick and smooth gave Milo an angry disposition.

Neko spotted Milo's reaction and squeak-mailed a short exclamation. Widget glanced over and grinned. Gadget looked at Milo, who turned away to make his sandwich. His cheeks felt hot. Gadget raised an eyebrow curiously. Zoe looked at the two of them and saw Milo's reaction. Zoe gave Gadget a push and giggled.

Widget poked Gadget in the side and whispered to her, "You have too many boy-friends!"

Zoe looked outraged and whined, "Dammit! That is NOT fair! You mousy sex-pot!"

Gadget turned pinked pink to the ears and said, "Golly! How many is too many?" She smiled over at Milo and she called out to him, "Hey ,Milo! After Widget and Ramon play hand-ball, Neko-Ney and I were going to play. Did you want to come watch? It might be so quick, it's over before we blink."

He glanced over and looked uncomfortable. He came over and said, "I–don't know. I better keep working on the synchronization system. It's got loads of bugs."

She smiled at him and said softly, "You do need a break. Look, I'll help you afterwards? O-K? A little relaxation won't kill you, you know? Golly! Lighten up!"

He blinked and shuffled his feet once and said, shrugging, "Sure! Why Not? I am curious as to which of you two are actually faster. In pure processing speed, Neko should be faster, but the human brain has it all over the Doorways-CPU in multi-tasking visual cues. Should be close to a level field. I think."

Neko shrugged. "I just want to swat a ball around and have fun! We aren't playing for prizes or nuthin'!"

Widget smiled and said, "Hoo–boy! Here comes 'match of the century'! Ramon, we should hurry up and get our match out of the way and give these two room! They might tear the place down!"

Gadget shook her head and giggled. Neko giggled and nodded. They looked at each other and broke out laughing. Milo grimaced, trying to smile. His heart wasn't in it, because he kept thinking of Chase and what she might be going through. Gadget was flirting with that guard ,too. He wasn't sure which bothered him more.

Neko asked Milo straight out, "Hey, Mistah Brain? You ain't jealous of Ramon, here, play footsie with Miss Gee, are ya?" Milo choked on his sandwich when Neko's New York accent chain-sawed through his playing-it-cool.

Gadget exclaimed to Neko, outraged, "NEKO! That isn't very polite! Golly!"

Ramon laughed, but tried to act disinterested in the answer. He obviously was a little bit interested in her.

As Milo downed part of a glass of milk, to get his choking under control, Neko added, "I don't really want to know. I'm just curious, is all." She smiled broadly at Milo.

Milo retorted angrily, "You know what happens to curious cats."

She stood up and stretched and yawned. When she yawned she took a step toward Milo. She asked him in a low voice, "You know what happens to people who play to rough with cats don't you?"

Her left hand moved so blindingly quick, he didn't even blink as he felt a slight tugging on the plastic milk glass he was holding in left hand. She turned and stalked out of the room. Gadget was on her feet, and Milo realized his hand was wet.

Zoe said in awe, "Holy jumping shit! WOW!"

He looked at the plastic container weeping milk from where her razor-sharp claws had sliced right through the surface, missing his fingers by millimeters. He put it carefully into the sink.

Gadget asked him, "Did she get you?" He shook his head in a negative and got another cup.

Widget smiled and shook her head. "Ya know, Milo? You shouldn't casually threaten people like that. She was playing with you. You were out of bounds. Am I right ,Ramon?"

He nodded and said, "Yep. That was a little harsh, bro. You really need to work on your people skills."

Zoe threw in, "You are lucky! She coulda torn you a new one! Dude, you need a time out!"

Gadget stood up and said in a strong voice, "That is quite enough! Milo has had enormous strain and stress and is showing it. We are all frazzled. Neko included. Milo...I'm sure she'll get over it, but don't keep baiting her. Please? I'll talk to her ,too. We need to calm down and not snipe at each other."

She turned to Milo, and said, "The hand-ball court is on the top level and has a six centimeter thick poly-lexan observation wall you can watch through. I would like you to watch."

Milo opened his mouth and just nodded and said softly, "Alright. I'll be there in twenty minutes."

Ramon and Widget went about warming up the court while Zoe watched the match.

Widget made the mistake of wearing a white cotton sports top and white shorts when she started the match. She threw herself into it with gusto. She caught on quickly and trounced him in quick order, building up quite a sweat. Her perspiration was dripping off of her when she was finished.

She noticed Zoe flagging her down while she was getting a congratulatory hug from Ramon. Widget noticed Zoe wanted her to look down.

Ramon was saying,"I'm glad to see you happy. I thought I'd be disappointed to lose to a replicant. But I'm not!"

Widget looked down to see that her clothes had turned translucent. She went ,"Eeep!" She covered herself and blushed. Looking down, she notice that Ramon was liking what he saw. She blushed redly and muttered to Ramon, "You should have said something!"

He looked at her in surprise and asked, "Why? You might have changed clothes?"

She huffed and exclaimed, "Men!" She punched him in the upper-arm and ran out of the court. Zoe laughed and stared.

He winked at her and left it, too.

Widget went to Gadget's room and warned her of what happened with her. Gadget and she had a giggle about it. It was Gadget's turn to be jealous of Widget and she didn't like the feeling one bit. She had never felt those stirrings and if these were what Milo had, she owed him an apology. She went through the box of clothes that Leia had scrounged up for Gadget, Widget and Neko-Ney. At least if any one could wear it, they all could wear it.

Gadget got into some exercise clothes. A blue sports bra and shorts went together for her outfit. She was nervous and feeling a little exposed when she came into the court. Neko-Ney came up with a pink sports bra and pair of pink and black speedos Gadget was put off by the thought that Neko was showing less skin than she was.

While they were dressing, Gadget asked Neko in Squeak-mail, "Why annoy Milo?"

Neko said in a normal voice, "For freedom's sake. I want to keep him reminded that he doesn't control us anymore!"

"You don't have to take it so ...personal!" Gadget was exasperated.

Neko stopped dressing and looked at Gadget and shook her head.. She grinned at Gadget and said, "He annoys you ,too! You two do it yet?"

Gadget worked her mouth and then growled. She huffed, "Why do you do that?

"I'm unabashed. I like knowing stuff. DO you like him? Like you like Ramon? Milo is sort of cute."

Gadget got finished dressing and glared hopelessly at Neko. "Yes, he annoys me, too. Like him? Yes, I like him. I don't know how I like him. Milo is not an easy man to know. He's been hurt before, I think. He doesn't talk about her, but he doesn't trust women NOT to hurt him. He opens up more to me when he forgets that I'm a real girl inside of this exterior. When he's reminded, you can see the shutters go up and he pushes me away."

Neko nodded and finished dressing. "What I thought. He's afraid and doesn't know how to be brave with what he wants to do."

Gadget turned the knob and opened the door out into the hall. "What does he want to do?"

Neko grinned broadly and gave Gadget a shove and exclaimed, "YOU!" Neko bounded off down the hallway, laughing loudly.

Gadget stood there alone for a moment, thunderstruck. She swallowed hard and blushed fiercely and was glad noone was around to see her face.

Gadget caught up to Neko, and they went into the court and found apparently everyone else came in to the observation gallery to watch.

Ramon announced , "You two are going to play by Gambian rules. Winning score is twenty-one points. Ball hits the back wall, counts as a miss. Since Neko is the challenged, she serves."

The two girls threw themselves into the game with abandon. They started slow, but soon had the ball ricocheting back and forth so quick, it could barely be seen. Abruptly Gadget slowed down in returns and lost the match fairly quickly.

Both women were soaked in sweat from the work out.

Neko gasped out, "Hey! No fair! You pooped out on me! No recharges?"

Gadget shook her head. "No time to!"

Leia got a weird look on her face and ducked out. Zoe and Miriam came up to Gadget and congratulated her on a good game. Anthony hugged Neko and said, "That deserves a fish dinner and all the trimmings!"

Neko cheered tiredly, but with great enthusiasm, "Yippee! YAY! Hooray for me! Fish dinner! Let me bathe, nap and I'll be ready! Will you take me out? Am I going out on the town? Is this a date?" Neko was giggly and some of the other girls were acting giddy about it.

Zoe pulled on Neko's arm and giggled something to her. Neko looked quite pleased with herself. Milo felt like he should turn a hose on them. Some one pulled on his sleeve.

Gadget looked up at him and smiled at him. She said, "Let me shower and I'll be right with you, Milo. I have some ideas I'd like to bounce off of you. Alright?"

He blinked in surprise and nodded. "Fine! That's fine by me. Thanks, Gadj. You need to recharge and I'll make sure not to keep you to long. I was able to find another couple of recharge harnesses. So we're almost set for trials. Get showered and I'll get the cords set-up."

He patted her awkwardly on the back and rushed off to work.

Gadget spent a little extra time to get clean and made sure her modified jeans would fit her tail. She missed her old pants with the snaps in the back. She hated threading her tail through the hole. It tickled, especially near the top of it near the base where it joined her pelvis.. She paused after she pulled on her sleeveless tee-shirt. Miriam was playing a music video in the other room and the music hit Gadget in the gut like a punch.

She came out of the bathroom with a dazed expression on her face. Gadget looked at the screen in shock and wonder. The woman singing was mouse like. She had large ,round ears and a little pink nose. Her hair was a dark golden color almost matching her skin. Her dark coral lips caressed each note with passion, as her bright blue eyes flashed with blind fire. Her tail lashed with emotion and long limbs swayed in time with the throbbing beat.

"Playa Maya", Gadget whispered. Playa Maya tore through the song , like an emotional tornado. It was a song she had heard before, but never in this life. She trembled as she listened to it. It was a song about someone breathing their last breath, called ironically enough 'My Last Breath'. She accessed the IAI and looked up information on 'Playa Maya' and found out it was an Evanescence song from almost eighty years before.

Playa Maya apparently had a load of this group's music as covers on her last music album which had been called, 'The Mice in the World's Walls', published in 2078. Playa Maya was reputedly born in Beijing, China, in 2056, the year of the rat. She suffered Lefrene syndrome in the plague that cost her, her eyesight until recently. She was a Seattle, Washington, U.S.A. resident now, and was an out-spoken critic of UTX and their policies. She had extensive cosmetic surgery performed in 2075 after a run-in with UTX security during a protest in Chicago, Illinois, U.S.A. where she was almost beaten to death by the UTX security contingent there. Seven protesters were killed and hundreds were injured in the riots that were spawned by this incident violence.

Miriam shook Gadget free of the pull of the IAI and Gadget blinked back tears. She was surprised to find tears running down her cheeks. She shook with emotion and she was suddenly in Miriam's arms for comfort. Miriam was surprised by this action.

Miriam stroked Gadget's hair and said in a soothing tone, "Aw, I'm sorry. I guess I should have warned you. I wasn't thinking...of how the music might impact you. You were lost in it from the look of it."

"Mom? What year was I born in?" Gadget was breathing fast and asked with trepidation.

Miriam Smiled and said, "We missed so many birthdays together. You were born in 2056, October 31st , A halloweenie baby! I was only sixteen at the time. I'm glad I kept you. My mom helped raise you. Why do you ask?"

Gagdet took a step back and looked agog at her mother. "Ahem. I wondered why you looked so young. That was to much info. It said that Playa Maya was born in the year of the rat. I was born in the same year? Wow. That is sort of weird. I'm a mouse-girl born in the year of the rat! I thought I was younger than that."

Miriam went over to one of the bags she had packed for herself and Zoe and got out a small stuffed animal. It was a rat in a blue satin jacket and wore a red scarf.

"You caught this at a Playa Maya concert, years ago. Here. Happy birthday, early or belated. I'm not sure which. Either five years or three days one side or another"

Miriam turned down the PTV and sat down. Miriam smiled and said, "I'm forty-three and you are twenty-six, going on twenty-seven and Zoe is thirteen, going on forty!"

Gadget blink in surprise and grinned. "Good golly! I have a birthday coming up in THREE days?"

Miriam looked sad and said wistfully, "Don't get too excited, kiddo. Laying low here, you might not even get a cake. I'll try to get you at least a cupcake with dinky candle in it at least. Anything more than that is a bloody miracle!"

Gadget frowned and headed for the door and said, "OOPS, sorry, Miriam. I got to go! Milo is expecting me to help out! I better get with it."

Miriam smiled at Gadget and asked, "Do you like him?"

Gadget looked at Miriam in surprise and rolled her eyes, "Ugh! You and Neko! Golly! I don't think I SHOULD answer now that everyone is asking! I don't know. Yes. Not like that! Good-bye, Mom!" Gadget left the room quickly and practically ran to Milo's impromptu working area in Dr. Fisher's lab.

Milo looked up and smiled at Gadget and then looked at her curiously,"You're looking flustered. Everything O-k?"

"Sure. Just raring to get to work! What's first?"

He frowned and said, "I know you're a fast learner...but if you don't know what you're doing–let me know! Yours and Neko's and Widget's minds are held in the balance! We have to be sure in that. If we do this badly enough...all three of your brains could be irreparably damaged!"

She swallowed and nodded. In a small voice, she said quietly, "I understand."

"Good. Let me fill you in on what's going on. I'll refresh, Dr. Fisher, too.", Milo said before he launched into a long technical explanation of what he was doing. The system he put together had to handle up to four huge uploads and downloads simultaneous with sorting and sifting the information going both ways in such a manner that it was understandable, not gibberish, and not poisoned with worthless data. The hardware was the simple part and Milo and Dr. Fisher threw together the parts fairly quickly. It was the enormity of the upload and download and the 'refining' of the raw data and compressing the files created into a readable format that had Milo over a barrel.

Basically they needed a huge computer, or even a super-computer capable of processing several tera-bytes of data per second. The biggest desk-top model they had in the safe-house could barely manage one and one-half tera-bytes per second.

Gadget suggested to Milo, "We use what we have and try Widget and ME and let everyone else not worry about it. It'll either work or it won't. If it works....fine! If not, we try to get a bigger computer, or we build a network in-house, or do something else? This is at least relatively quick. If it works. I'm game."

Dr. Fisher nodded. "The human mind is very flexible. Gadget might make this work, even if on calculation, it shouldn't."

Milo shrugged. "Alright then. Let's get Widget and try this out."

A moment later Widget came in with Ramon and announced, "I'm ready."

Doctor Fisher looked agog at Gadget and Widget. "What in hell?"

Milo looked up and over at Doctor Fisher with a curious look and asked, "What's wrong?"

Dr. Fisher looked at Widget and asked with a nervous sound to his voice, "Why did you come in NOW? We just now finished."

Widget nodded and said matter-of-factly,"I came because you were finished."

Dr. Fisher persisted and asked, "How did you know?"

Widget looked confused and said plainly, "Gadget wified me. We're physically close. Otherwise she would have celled me."

"Cybernetic telepathy?" Dr. Fisher asked of Milo.

Milo nodded and in surprise, exclaimed, "Jeez! You don't know! It is one of the slicker things that was going on at Walt Disney World! All the replicants there communicate across a complete domain of communications. They can wifi each other to make requests of the communications nets, or special effect cues, or cue each other. They can cell-phone each other for direction, aid, emergency protocols or information uploads or downloads. The replicants are pretty damned sophisticated." He paused as what he just said sunk into him. He turned and looked with wide eyes at Gadget. "Holy Shit! Why haven't you gone mad?"

She yawned. She blinked and looked over at Widget. Widget looked back. Gadget shrugged. Gadget looked at Milo and asked, "What?"

Milo said slowly to her, "The human brain can not handle the onslaught of wifi data! It can NOT process the data."

Gadget giggled. "Golly! Mine can! Aren't I special? Can we continue with this later?"

Widget nodded and said sarcastically, "Wow, Gadget! You have an inbuilt radio in your brain? The human brain can't handle satellite radio! Oh my golly! I'm stunned!" She looked over at Milo and smirked. She crossed her arms and asked, "Sound familiar?" Gadget giggled.

Milo flinched and turned red and gritted his teeth. He turned on his heel and stomped over to the door and flung it open and stalked out. Gadget's expression died on her face as she slumped as she realized she and Widget had gone to far.

Ramon chased after Milo, calling out, "Hey you! Come back here!"

She ran after him. "MILO! Come back! We're sorry!"

Widget's lip trembled, while she crossed her arms in front of her and she muttered in a low voice, "Why don't you whack him in the head and tell him, 'get over yourself'?"

Ramon caught up to Milo in the hallway and jerked him around by the arm and shouted at him, "What the hell is your problem? You have a shitty attitude, mister!"

Milo shoved him away angrily and shouted back, "Get OFF me, dumb-ass!"

Ramon pushed back. Milo was in a blind rage and took a swing at him. Ramon danced back and punched Milo in the face, knocking off his glasses. Milo growled and leapt on him and overbore him to the floor, punching wildly. Ramon rolled back and went prone, flipping Milo over his head.

Gadget caught up to them in time to see the punches fly. "STOP IT!" She screamed it and as Milo was flipped over Ramon's head. She was close enough to catch one of Milo's flailing heels impacting to her right breast. The pain exploded into her brain like a white-hot explosion of burning hot wires being drawn through her chest. She collapsed to her side moaning and curled into a foetal position.

Ramon jumped back to his feet and whirled around as Milo clambered to his feet. Milo spun around as Ramon tackled him backward, where they both tripped over the prone Gadget. They spilled to the floor, still trading punches.

Doors swung open and first on the scene was Miriam Hackensack. She saw Gadget was down and had heard her scream to 'Stop it' and reacted in a rapid-fire way. She leapt over the moaning Gadget and jerked the fighting men up by their collars and slammed their heads together to stun them.

She shook them like they weighed just pounds each and their toes dangled over the ground by and inch or more. She growled at them, "Your wild punches hurt my little girl! Apologize!"

Zoe stood in the door and looked white as a sheet . Her eyes were huge and her mouth was a little 'o' as she stood there staring at her mother. She couldn't recognize the amazonian warrior that her mother had suddenly transformed into. She whispered in surprise,"Mom?"

Larry was slightly in front of Tiffany, at the end of the hallway and remarked in surprise, "Well! Holy Shit, Mrs. Hackensack can kick ass."

Widget ran over to Gadget and knelt by her and helped her to her feet. Tears of agony ran down Gadget's cheeks as she kept both hands on her right breast. Widget whispered, "You weren't supposed to get hurt when you knocked him in the head!"

Gadget said aloud, gaping at the super-strong Miriam, "Mom! I'm alright. One of them fell on me when I tried to break them up. It's my fault! Oww. We caused the fight by making fun of Milo and then things shot to straight to heck."

Miriam put them down and glared at both of them. Milo looked shamed and Ramon looked on Miriam with fear.

He stammered out, "Y-you aren't a cyborg! You showed no cybernetic parts!"

Miriam turned a little pink as she realized everyone was staring at her. She rubbed her nose and smiled, "I ...uh...work out a lot."

Zoe exclaimed in pleasure, "Oh my god! My Mom is a super-powered cyborg killing machine! Oh MY GOD! This is so cool!"

Miriam snapped at Zoe, "ZOE! Shut up! You are not helping mommy!"

Dr. Fisher exclaimed loudly, "NOW, if everyone is through beating up on everyone else, I can try to fix the injured! Idiots!"

Leia took Miriam by the elbow and said quietly, "We need to talk, Mrs Hackensack."

Miriam looked surprised and said, "Oops! Darn. Busted!"

Larry shook his head and remarked to Tiffany, " 'More secrets than cold-war Berlin' I seem to remember saying?"

She grimaced and said, "Matamoros is like a big, unkempt conspiracy-dog, and everyone's secrets are like fleas."

A door in the middle of the hall flung open and a sleepy Neko-Ney wearing a blue tee-shirt and rubbing one of her eyes, shouted out in a sleepy voice, "Fight quieter! Shut up! Sleeping!" She then slammed the door back.

Leia shook her head and said, "Boring-- you people aren't. This is like a traveling circus! Come on, strong woman! Time for you to sing in the center ring!"

Zoe came over and grabbed her mother's other arm , and said,"I wanna hear how you became a killer cyborg, too!"

Miriam glowered at Zoe and said to her, "You are NOT helping out, dear."

Tiffany bent over and grabbed up Milo's glasses. She looked over to Larry and smiled. She said to him, "Reminds me of some of the fights you had with your brother."

As they went into the medical room, and Larry said to her, "Maybe...but I never involved you in them."

Tiffany laughed, "Sorry! Gadget is more active-oriented than I am. She is more prone to wade in and mix it up, than I was. I was the one more prone to shoot people. She obviously gets it from her mother, Miriam."

"Fierce women seem to fall into my orbit" ,Larry said in jest.

Tiffany said to him, "Must be because you are so fierce!"

He laughed loudly enough for everyone's attention to be attracted. He gave her shoulders a quick rub and patted her back. "Me? Fierce? Not compared to some here!"

She chortled and came up to Milo and offered him his glasses back. Milo took them without a word and looked down. He looked beaten down. He was bleeding from the nose and had a cut over one eye. He said in a whisper, "Thank you ,Tiffany."

Zoe went over to the fridge and got out a chill pack. She took it over to Gadget and offered it to her with ,"Somebody pegged your boobie good, hunh?"

Gadget accepted it and applied it the bruised area, while she gave out a low hiss through her teeth. Gadget said, "It wasn't 'good'! I got sloppy and my body power was at zero. To slow to dodge." Gadget stuck out her tongue and shrugged.

Zoe asked mystified, "What is 'body power'?"

Gadget replied, "It is the amount of stored motive power for my actuators and special movement systems. It's what makes me strong and super-quick. On bio-power produced by my body's biological system, I am only strong as strong as a human man."

Zoe asked, "Don't you mean, 'as strong as a human woman'?"

Gadget shook her head and smiled, "A little thing like me? I'm very strong for my size. About as strong as a chimpanzee, or a larger human man. My bio-power is limited. I could throw people around like Miriam if I was as big as her. Wait!" She looked at Miriam intently. "What..."

Leia intently looked at Miriam and asked her, "You have replicant bio-ware musculature implants! They can't be normally implanted in humans due to rejection factors. Where did you get rejection-free implants? Getting a nuclear weapon on the black-market is child's play in comparison."

Miriam continued looking at Gadget and nodded toward her and said, "From her, when she was still wearing a human face. Before she 'died' as it were."

Milo said to Gadget in a small voice that verged on a sob,"I am so sorry for hurting you."

Gadget turned pink a little and gave an ironic laugh. "After the grand speech I gave in the kitchen about NOT sniping at each other and not cutting each other down....well, aren't I just the biggest hypocrite!? I'M sorry for jumping on you, Milo. It wasn't a good thing that I did. I don't really know if getting kicked in...an embarrassing spot hurt more or less than hurting you. Sorry."

Widget chimed in, "I started it. Gee, I was so...irritated that Milo was carrying on about Gadget and what the human brain can and can't do....I was...I don't know. Angry about it? I'm having a problem with other people getting more attention than me. I'm nervous and anxious and really scared. Am I invisible?" Tears ran down her cheeks when she asked that and she looked shocked at that. In a quizzical voice, she asked, "Why am I crying? Am I in pain?"

Miriam blinked and said, "Yes. Yes, you are! You are jealous of your sister and it tears you up inside! My god! I saw plenty of it with Zoe. Molly was thirteen years older than Zoe and she had oodles of natural jealousy. It is natural in siblings. That kind of relation is all too common. Your relationship to Gadget is a little harder to pin down. Older to younger or vice versa, I suppose it doesn't matter. You are left out and it eats you up inside. Come here!"

Widget looked suspiciously at Miriam and came over. Miriam gave her a big hug and kissed her on the cheek. "I can be proud of all my girls. You can be the middle daughter, between Molly/Gadget and Zoe! Yo, Zo! What do ya know? What do you think? The little one is always spoiled!"

Zoe shrugged and said in a casual tone of voice, that bordered on pleasure, "Sure–that's fine by me."

Miriam looked intensely suspiciously between Widget and Zoe. Miriam asked Zoe, "Alright! What's up?"

Zoe scuffed her feet guiltily and said in an innocent voice , "Nothing. She just taught me some moves. Martial arts thingees."

Ramon laughed, "She was teaching you to kill men with martial arts!"

Zoe nodded and exclaimed in glee, "I know! She is SO cool that she knows how to kill people!"

Miriam frowned and put a hand over her face and sighed, "There goes my instilling of family values down the ole' crapper! ZOE! Killing people is NOT 'cool'!"

Zoe looked superior and crossed her arms in front of her and asked sarcastically,"Oh? Is that right, 'killer cyborg mom'?"

Miriam put a hand over her eyes and said quietly, "Oi!"

Tiffany looked at everyone and looked at Miriam, in turn. "Miriam...we NEED to hear how your daughter ,Molly, got involved with UTX, how you got implants, and what happened to her!"

Miriam nodded. She said, "It involved the 'River of Time' project that UTX was involved in. I'm still not sure what it was. Molly never told me. The muscle implants were part of her last gift to me. She smuggled out some kind of muscle and bone implants, from what ever she was working on for UTX.. I never knew why UTX needed a language translator. It never made sense to me. What language did they need to have translated?"

Miriam fidgeted uncomfortably and said," She was an intern with UTX translation programming and graduated college at age eighteen, going right to work for them. She had gotten over a bout of the plague she contracted in 2072 at age sixteen. It changed her sight and hearing, making them more acute and clear to her. Her sense of balance grew more acute as well. She was part of that rare one percent that benefitted from the plague. Half died, four or five percent were crippled, and one percent benefitted."

Zoe interjected, "I'm one of the four or five percent. If I didn't have cyberntic balance implants, I couldn't get out of bed. Permanent vertigo. It destroyed my balance sense completely. It wasn't fair. I was four. Ever since...I fall down a lot. Sorry. Just throwing in my two cents. I try not to let it effect me...but I don't how to do that."

Widget reached over and rubbed her upper arm and said, "Gee, sorry I called you dizzy earlier. I meant 'Ditsy ' as in 'inane' or 'goofy'. I didn't mean to overly insult you."

Zoe gave her a caustic glare and said sarcastically, "Great apology! I feel so much better now! 'Overly insult'! Thanks loads!"

Widget and Gadget giggled. Widget smiled, patted her on the arm and said, "Good! I look like a mouse, you are ditzy, and Gadget is the pretty one.. What do you want?"

Zoe looked outraged and said loudly, "You two are clones! Well...practically clones."

Widget shrugged and sighed, "Well yes, we're both the pretty ones. I'm sorry, Zoe."

Zoe slugged Widget in the upper arm several times ,half-heatedly and Widget giggled and laughed.

Miriam glared at them and said loudly, "GIRLS! Behave!"

Leia prompted Miriam, by asking, "How did Molly get involved with UTX?"

"They were interested in her because she was a survivor of the plague, and had a talent for languages. She told me it ...uh...it was an 'aptitude for loving her family'. She never explained that one, either. In the last year, I almost never saw her. It was all so secretive, and she was working with Maximilian Matamoros and with Doctor Jules Fairweather and the physicist who has worked on that electromagnetic direct thrust engines. Oh, Gregori Krekorov! That Ukrainian fellow who signed on to UTX a couple of years ago. I think Molly was sweet on him. He was young , in his late thirties, and was terribly brilliant, and was funny. She prized that highest in men. Men who could make her laugh!" She looked at Milo and he flinched. He looked so shy to Miriam.

"On her last trip to visit me she seemed nonchalant but was dying inside. I could tell. She was moody and suspicious. She was argumentative and couldn't hold still. She was obsessed with dinosaurs and the ancient central American cultures. She woke up screaming from nightmares she couldn't tell me off. I could tell that, that man did something to her. She couldn't talk normally. He put something in her head to guard his secrets. It was evil. Evil!" Miriam could barely hold her helpless fury in check. Gadget came over and squeezed Miriam's hand.

Milo interjected, "That's what Ramos said we had to under-go when we found out the truth about Gadget's brain! They killed Becky and Ricky and Unit Two. They kidnaped Chase and Unit Three....I mean 'Fidget' because of that. They killed Chase's guardian, Doctor Lassiter! What did Molly know? They apparently need what is in her brain! Could it really be 'aliens'?"

Leia sniffled and said, "How about 'Illuminati'? Ancient cults? We see NO hard information. Why didn't Gadget remember seeing Gregori Krekorov? They were together at the Yucatan area?" Leia looked over at Miriam and said in a flat voice, "Molly Hackensack was a science-fiction fan, had innumerable sci-fi games AND had as a hobby making alien languages? She had aliens on the brain, Mrs. Hackensack."

Milo snapped angrily, "Maybe! Even so–ole' Maxxy sure tried to kill a bunch of folks to make sure they didn't talk about something! He could have made up some bull-shit to hide Molly's brain! What is in it, worth all the blood?"

Gadget stood up straighter and said wonderingly, "I wonder if Jerry Reynolds knows?"

Several pairs of eyes fastened on her curiously.

Gadget looked at Leia and Ramon crossly. "Golly! Isn't he part of a conspiracy to KILL people and silence witnesses and stuff? We need to arrest him! Right?"

Leia shook her head and said quietly, "No. We don't have enough to arrest, just enough to label him a 'person-of-interest', or such. No one saw him do anything or say anything as incriminating. If we pull him now, it jeopardizes the investigation AND tips our hand."

"Well...",began Gadget, "...we could go into his office and poke around and see what we can turn up."

Leia frowned and asked Gadget, "Do you mean an illegal breaking and entry, followed by an illegal search and seizure?"

Gadget nodded her head and said,"I don't want him to get away, scot free! We have to do something!"

Widget growled angrily," I'm in favor of capitol punishment! Jerry cost us all too much! Like Chase and Fidget for starters."

Gadget nodded tiredly and yawned. Miriam patted her on the shoulder and said, "Almost through, honey! Just hang with me a couple of minutes longer." Gadget nodded and stretched and yawned.

Miriam started again, and said, "She presented me with these tiny tissue sampled in a sealed container thick as my finger. She said it contained cybernetic tissue used in replicants and I should use it to protect myself if something happened to her. She was nervous and edgy and I believed something would happen to her. She sounded so...paranoid and obsessed. She never had much interest in dinosaurs. Or the Olmecs or Toltecs and such!"

Miriam dropped her head and with a tremulous voice,"Molly never made it back to Belize. They said. UTX said. They said that one of the turbines on the air-car hit a bird and failed catastrophically causing the vehicle to be lost, with all aboard."

A tear ran down Miriam's cheek as she said, "They said that some of the bodies were recovered. The pilot and both passengers were killed on impact. Molly's body from the torso down was recovered. It was similar for the other two victims in the crash. UTX said it was quick and they didn't suffer."

"I had the implants put in the next year after they had grown enough for the procedure. I thought that foul play was involved in the incident. I complained and asked everyone to look into it. I wasn't satisfied about Molly's death. Too many questions. My questions. I died inside. I couldn't believe she just died." Miriam choked off at the last and wept quietly

Gadget said ironically, "I almost died in that Percy Priest Lake, in Nashville. I think the trip back to Belize was all bull-pucky."

Larry smiled Gadget and said, "Yeah, 'bull-pucky'."

Milo said tiredly, "Obviously–it was smoke and mirrors. Matamoros wanted what Molly Hackensack knew. BUT why a mouse? Why the conversion from Hackensack to Hackwrench?"

Anthony Fong said quietly, "Affection?"

Widget said, "OH My Gosh! Affection? Leslie Watts was a huge fan of Gadget Hackwrench! I found in one of her blogs, that she became a marine aviator because of her fandom for one of Disney's favorite mouse aviators."

Tiffany said, "Paula was quick and clever. She was a genius in medicine AND a big 'New Rescue Rangers' Fan. It was her guilty pleasure. Hell, she even had 'Gadget" scrubs!"

Gadget got an unusual look on her face and squeaked-mailed to Widget, "We progressed from (ones that adore) to (ones that have become)."

Widget acknowledged with a quick squeak-mail back,"Truth is truth. Desire in youth, regret as adult."

In real time it took almost two seconds for Gadget and Widget to talk, and everyone except Milo and Tiffany missed it. Milo asked Gadget, "What was that about?"

Gadget looked surprised and said smiling, " 'I used to not be able to spell 'Gadget Hackwrench'–NOW I am one!', Golly!" She giggled and shook her head. Widget laughed.

Leia looked queasy. She sniffled and coughed and said, "Makes sense from a cyber-psychotic point of view. If you adore something as a 'fan' perhaps there is less 'rejection-factor' of the cybernetics?"

Tiffany looked at Leia and raised an eyebrow at her. Tiffany asked, "Why don't you lay down for a while and drink chicken-soup? My god, you sound awful! You must feel horrible."

Dr. Fisher came over and put an infra-red thermometer in her ear and measured her temperature. He shook his head and growled, "You're burning up, agent. Dammit. You cyborgs think you're invulnerable, and complain when you're not. Let me get you an anti-viral nasal spray. It'll take care of most normal bugs. You know, Agent Brahms–you should have listened to the cat-girl. This could have been prevented."

Leia shrugged and said,"I never HEARD of a robot, android or replicant SMELLING an infection before symptoms developed. I'll listen next time."

Widget groused, "I want some restful sleep, and I want a piece of Jerry Reynolds' hind-end! I want to be in on the Op that's going to go into Belize to get Chase and Fidget out! We're all just fooling around in here!"

Gadget looked surprised, and said to everyone, "That's right! We...Widget and Me, were going to sleep and try to synchronize our dreams."

Widget looked around in irritation and jerked a thumb toward the door and said, "Alright, you mooks! Get out! We got sleeping to do!"

Gadget looked at Widget and asked her, " 'Mooks'? Where did you pick that up at?"

Anthony Fong laughed and said, "I bet I know! Hanging around the 'cat-goddess', hunh?"

Widget frowned and said in a huff, "Yeah, cat-goddess! My tail!"

Dr. Fisher looked sternly around, after administrating a nasal anti-viral to Leia, and said, "Milo, Gadget and Widget stays, everyone else–get the hell out of my sick bay unless some one else breaks something. Agent Brahms, sleep off the virus. Agent Perez, try not to tackle anyone else for a day while you heal back from your fist-fight with Mr. Finch. Mr. Finch, the same goes for you as well. WE have work to do. Everyone else, good-night!"

Zoe and Miriam gave Gadget and Widget quick hugs and left the room behind Anthony Fong and Special Agent Ramon Perez. Larry and Tiffany gave Widget and Gadget quick pats and left.

Milo got off the examination bed with a groan, and went about setting up the synchronization rig. He groaned, "I should work on my sense of humor. God. Everyone probably hates me. I can't believe I lost control like that."Gadget and Widget stripped down to bra and panties. Milo turned away to hide his interest.

Gadget sighed and said while climbing up on the table, "Milo...no one hates you. You take things to personally. You need to laugh and smile more."

Milo frowned and said, "How? People I care for have been killed. I have been betrayed. My life has been ruined. A girl I really liked, was kidnaped and my car was blown up and set fire to! How can I treat these things like they don't matter? Like they don't touch you? Don't they touch you?"

She laid down and jacked into the rig. Widget did the same and asked Gadget, "Y'know, Gadj... I'm like him in this. How can you laugh in the face of that?"

Gadget looked thoughtful as Milo put the recharge harness on hert. Dr. Fisher did the same with Widget. Gadget answered in a drowsy voice, "With effort. But it is worthwhile. It helps others not feel so bad. Milo? What's your buffer over-run number?"

Gadget was asleep before he could answer her. He was somewhat shocked hearing her question. He never really thought about it. He felt really stressed, but he hadn't thought about that.

Dr. Fisher said off-handedly, "You look like you're thinking a positive ten or better."

"From cyber-telepathy to real telepathy in one afternoon. Good trick, Doc",Milo said grudgingly.

Dr. Fisher monitored the EEG's of Gadget and Widget, and glanced over to Milo and remarked, "I have to stay ahead of the damned curve. You people are re-writing the neurological book with these ...new things. I don't even know what in hell to call'em any more. Jesus! Full brain replacements? She's worth her weight in gold bullion, y'know."

Milo shook out of his reverie and stared agog at Dr. Fisher. "What in hell are you talking about? She is–WAS and expensive replicant! Worth over sixty-five thousand world dollars! That's not chicken-feed, but not worth her weight in gold! Well maybe the illegal muscles and bones would add more."

Dr. Fisher came over and shook his head. "You just don't get it, do you? Her brain regenerated! That little girl's brain RE-fucking-GENERATED! UTX has cracked the immortality nut! If my brain had the same treatment and put into a replicant body like her's...I would be immortal! Undying until I was killed by violence. What do you think that is worth?"

Milo paled and swallowed hard. "Holy shit. More than her weight in gold! I never really considered the implications."

Milo put a shaking hand to his mouth and regarded the sleeping form of Gadget in awe. He whispered, "A human upgrade. Homo sapiens version 2.0. Holy cow. Why did Matamoros stick Molly Hackensack's brain into an immortal mouse girl?"

Dr. Fisher shook his head and shrugged his shoulders. "Maybe a test-bed of what's possible. She got involved in something dirty, and maybe he needed her knowledge, but also needed Molly Hackensack a cadaver ,too. I don't know. We have to many questions and no real answers."

Milo nodded sadly and said, "We need to monitor these two, and make sure neither are damaged by our experimental set-up."

Dr. Fisher nodded and said, "Right."

Gadget woke up light-headed and tingling eight hours later. Milo looked unkempt and unshaven and asked her, "How do you feel?"

"Fine. Fully refreshed." She replied sitting upright and helping Milo un-plug all the attachments from her.

Widget said in a pleasant tone, "I dreamed of fishing. Bass fishing on a blue boat in some bayou. It was wild!"

Neko-Ney said, "I ate fish in a restaurant. Miriam paid for it and Anthony took me there. I'm ready to recharge. The fish was good. The news isn't"

Widget sat up and looked around at her. Gadget did like-wise. Milo sighed and said sadly, "I should fill in the gaps. The Feds have dropped the investigation. 'Insufficient evidence to pursue drastic measures' or some-such clap-trap. The F.B.I. is the local American arm of the World Government's World Investigation Agency. Well, the W.I.A. pulled the plug on any Black-Op or covert operation to rescue Chase from Belize. They also nixed the idea of pulling in Jerry Reynolds, too."

Widget looked as stricken as Gadget felt. Widget asked, "In other words....we just ran at full speed into a bureaucratic-stone-wall cover-up! The Vocal Governance Chip won't let me talk about those so-and-so's freely, so I'll just stew."

Gadget said sourly, "Golly! Let me guess. The remaining witnesses to what happened to Chase Victor are 'replicants' who can't testify in court; me, who is owned body and soul by UTX under the laws of the land, and you, who UTX has already destroyed the reputation of."

Milo nodded slowly and dropped his head.

Gadget was furious and she thought quickly. With determination, she said to Milo, "Well then, Robin Hood–if the Sherif of Nottingham has Maid Marion and her hand-maiden locked up in the tower, don't you think it's time for the Merry Men to stage a rescue?"

Milo shook his head and said dejectedly "It's over. I'm not a professional soldier, hell, I'm a lousy amateur one ! I can't rescue Chase. I'm just a loser."

Gadget put her hands on his arms and squeezed tight. "No, you aren't ,Milo! Only if you believe you are. Believe in yourself and you can accomplish miracles! We can't give up! Chase and Fidget are counting on us! We can't let them down, even if others let us down!"

Widget said softly, "I AM a professional soldier. Or was once. We can do this. A surprise hit-and-run raid to liberate her might be effective. We have to try! We can't just sit around on our tails!"

Milo shrugged and said slowly, "Maybe I'll feel differently after I sleep on it. This is a lot to take in. We need transport, weapons and support. Who do we bring with us?"

Neko-Ney said, "I'm in. I wanna save Chase from the mooks in Belize. Ask for volunteers! There will be plenty!"

Gadget frowned at that. She muttered, "We don't need plenty of volunteers. We need trained troops. Volunteers might shoot each other in the back by stumbling into the line of fire."

Widget said, "We'd need training....but if we are all we have...we'd go anyway! We have to do something!"

Milo nodded and patted the bed that Gadget had gotten out of and gestured to Neko-Ney, who jumped up on it. She seated herself and lifted her arms, so Milo could strap her into the recharge harness. Neko laid down and fell asleep when Milo powered up the rig.

Milo shrugged and said tiredly, "I'm off to bed. You can mention your idea to the others and see what they think. Don't be discouraged if the idea doesn't go over well. The Belize Replication Facilities are one of the most heavily guarded places on the globe. Terrorists and anarchists have tried for years to gain entry, and all have failed. I don't think there is any history of the tries outside of UTX files, so we would be proceeding blind. Good night."

On impulse, Gadget kissed Milo on the cheek and hugged him. "We'll get her back."

Widget gave Milo a pat on the back as he tiredly staggered by her. He looked a little more light-hearted after the peck on the cheek, but that could have been her imagination.

He stopped at the door and said to Widget, "Your Buffer over-run number fell by one. I'd say the 'dream-machine' is an unqualified success. That's one for our side."

Widget smiled broadly and high-fived Gadget.

Gadget said happily, "Every victory IS a victory! We have to celebrate each one of them!"

Milo gave her a small smile and nodded. "Good-night, sappy mouse-girl." He turned and left.

Widget shook her head and said wonderingly to Gadget, "I am impressed by THAT!" Widget hopped down off the table and headed for her clothes to get dressed, and shrugged into her jacket and said, "You actually made him smile!." She zipped that up and pulled her pants up. "I didn't think you'd ever make him smile." She pulled her boots on with practiced moves. Widget giggled as she said, "Not without sex, at least."

Gadget gave Widget a shove and blushed. Gadget said, "We need to see what our numbers are, what kind of data we have on the place in the Yucatan, and our armament and transportation situation is. The devil is in the details, so we have loads of little devils to boot about. Golly! What a pain."

It took them about six hours in the dining room, looking for virtual tours of the Belize Replication Facility, reading security appraisals from various sites , and talking to various people –virtual personas to real people on-site to boot devilish details. They were able to find substantive plans, virtual tours and details on the Belize facility. About forty percent of it was common knowledge. From placements of air-ducts, another ten percent could be guessed at. That left a full fifty percent unknowable. That included the high-security areas, Research and Development, Executive living quarters, and the special projects area.

This area was an area the size of Cape Canaveral and with a population of over forty-thousand workers and security personnel. Not counted in this were the security robots, androids or replicants.

Anthony Fong sighed and said quietly, "It'll be like attacking a small country!"

Gadget said, "No. No attacking. We sneak in, find Chase and Fidget, and sneak them out. I might be tough as far as some replicants go...BUT I am small and light and by nature, unarmored. There are things in there that can eat me alive. Literally! I think I have some kind of stealth mode built into me. When I was on the roof of the UTX Medical building, the hunters and chaser couldn't scan me. They reacted when they SAW me. That might give me an edge."

Neko-Ney said, "Dr Fairweather foresaw this as a possibility. He was worried about Max moving against him. He feared Max. Max is a very bad man. Dr. Jules raised me with help from his housekeeper, Mrs. Mahoney. She's from Jersey. She ain't no mook! That's fer sure! I know some secret ways into the B.R.F.! You have to take me along. I have to save Dr. Jules! I know how to penetrate the security and where the secret armory is!"

Gadget and everyone else sat up at that. Widget smiled and said quietly, "We might pull this thing off! Secret armory? Hooha! Okay, Cat-goddess! Spill!"

Neko looked a little ill. She flashed up a holographic display onto the table. She shook herself and bristled up. She pointed square at the reservoir adjacent to the Facility. "We have to swim! Swim down the Belize River to the dam that powers the Belize Replication Facility. At the bottom of the dam is a grate here, that covers an inspection corridor filled with water. We swim in here past the cyborg pirana fish, past the metal scanners and up to here where we are in an underground complex. There are some corridors here going to some rooms, one of which is a secret armory."

Milo looked stricken and asked,"Metal detectors? We can't carry guns or even knives into the damned thing? What...WAIT! CYBORG PIRANA FISH? Are you joking with me?"

Neko looked sad and shook her head. "No. Giant cyborg pirana fish. About two and one half meters long. Very dangerous."

Widget shrugged and said, "It makes it difficult, not impossible. Ceramic headed spear-fishing spear-guns loaded with neuro-toxin darts could kill them. Or shark batons! They are 12 gauge shotgun shells in spear-gun spears. If we know they are there, we can plan to bypass them. Ceramic weapons are hard to come by, but they can be gotten."

Gadget looked sick. She whispered, "Into the dark, so deep. Great."

"Anywho!" Neko-Ney exclaimed and pointed at one end of the dam and said, "There is a corridor there that leads to the security core zone above the 'Pit'. The 'Pit can only be entered by passing the test. I have no idea of what the 'Test' is. The 'Pit' is one hundred fifty meters in diameter and almost a kilometer deep down to the 'First Zone'. The 'Second Zone' is one hundred meters below the first. I don't know what any of the terms mean. It's smack into the high-security zone. Dr. Jules made me memorize this stuff."

Widget nodded and said, "This is do-able! It'll be hard, but I think we can pull this off."

Neko said, "I don't want to swim."

Gadget nodded and said slowly, "Me neither, BUT– we have to! There is no other way to go. This is not good. We don't float."

Ramon said, "Modern SCUBA gear doesn't care if you float or not. There are positive floatation vests and weight harnesses to get you to neutral buoyancy. The thing is, you need some SCUBA training! Anyone going. I'm SCUBA trained. Anyone else trained that way?"

There were some head-shakes, and Anthony Fong put up a hand. He said, "I used to free-dive some of the shallow areas of Oahu, Hawaii. I've done some SCUBA when younger. I haven't done any in years."

Milo said, "I did some snorkeling when I was a kid, but I never did any SCUBA diving, sorry."

Tiffany said with a smile, "At least there are some! There could have been none. You just need some days in the pool to familiarize yourselves with the equipment and you'll be ready."

Gadget smiled at Tiffany and remarked in a sardonic tone, "Golly, how easy you make it sound. We'll be sure to eat at their food court, too–while we're there."

Tiffany laughed and Widget shook her head, smiling. Neko said with a smile, "I hope they have cheese-burgers there!" Her exaggerated lip-smacking made people smile.

Widget punched her lightly in the upper arm and said, "Idiot."

Neko wrote in the 'Mission Objectives' list; which read, 'Rescue Chase, Dr. Fairweather, Fidget', she then penciled in 'secure cheeseburger', to much laughter.

Widget closed one eye and glared balefully at Neko-Ney with the other one and asked in a dire voice, "You have never heard of 'professional demeanor', have you?"

Neko nodded with eyes full of bright mischief. Widget winced, and Gadget put a hand over her eyes, as Neko-Ney pronounced, "The less professional I act, da meaner you act! 'Professional Demeanor', sure–I know all about it! What does that have to do with cheese-burgers?"

Milo chortled, "Not one damned thing!" He put a hand over his mouth to smother his sudden laughter. The rest of the room erupted in laughter as the dour Milo Finch suddenly developed a sense of humor.

Gadget sat upright and looked intently at the holographic display. The laughter died off as people looked at her. She whispered, "A palm-top wouldn't set off the metal detectors, would it?"

Leia said, "In the air, yes—underwater, no. There is to much crud in the water. Silt, run-off, pollution, and just ...well, junk. What are you thinking, Gadget?"

Gadget smiled and looked up with a burning intensity, and said in a quiet tone, "I am thinking of taking in a weapon that could take down a city. If it works."

Widget snapped her fingers and grinned. "Gotcha! Good gosh! That would pack a wallop and then some. We just need to pay him a visit and get a copy!"

Milo caught on immediately, this time. He nodded enthusiastically and said with energy, "Payback is a bitch. He owes us a mighty weapon, at least. I want to examine this virus and make sure it'll deliver."

Miriam looked lost until then. She said, "AH-HA! The traitor, who has a hacker friend named 'Ruby Laser'?"

Milo looked up and around, and said, "I've got a plan."

That Night: Orlando, Florida

Jerry Reynold's long, low 2063 BMW Mantis racing coupe pulled up into the driveway. He loved the almost silent purr of it powerful hydrogen turbine. He climbed out from under it's gull-wing door and activated it's security system. He looked lovingly at the reflective black finish and turned to walk up the walkway. He paused, catching the merest glimmer of movement from the bushes. The sun was hours down and the moon was behind scudding clouds.

Some of the lights going up to the house were burned out giving a dark patch where he saw the movement at. The house was dilapidated and missing a shingle or two. The self-cleaning windows had failed a decade or two earlier and the siding showed years of neglect. The yard was neatly trimmed by an ancient robot lawn-mower, that still purred through the yard at the dinner hour.

A black cat dashed from the bush where he had seen movement and stopped on the walk-way and looked at him. It almost looked like a Halloween decoration. The main window had a flickering holographic jack-o-lantern in the middle flanked by ghosts that jiggled like gelatin.

He bent over and petted the cat with a sad sounding, "Hey, kitten-little, has the sky fallen on you yet? Guess not. Gotta go visiting folks. Hang around, I'm afraid this guy might be feeding me cat-food!"

Jerry stood up and walked up to the door and rang the bell. Anvil Clay's face appeared in the view-plate of the door. He smiled at Jerry and said jovially, "So glad you could make it on such notice! When I heard about your promotion, I just had to invite you over to celebrate it! Hey! You're early! Let me get ready. Just have to put my pants on. My new girl will let you in."

The door was opened by a short-haired Gadget model replicant wearing a French-maid outfit. She looked him up and down with just a flicker of emotion. She asked quietly, stepping out of the way, "May I take your coat, Sir? May I offer you a libation while you wait for my master?"

He shrugged out of his coat and draped it over her arms, and he said, "Ooh-la-la! Sure! I'll have a martini with two fingers of vermouth. Shake it, Babeeee! Always figured ole Anvil for a Gadget-phile. Pervert!" He laughed and shook his head and remarked, "It takes all kinds, I guess."

"Very good, sir",she said hanging up his coat in the entryway closet.

He looked around curiously and looked over at her, and asked her,"Where in the world did Anvil pick you up at? He couldn't afford you new."

"My first owner died. I'm a second owner replicant." She said that as she made him his martini. She handed it to him as he head footsteps on the stairway.

He took a sip and gagged. He exclaimed to her, "This SUCKS! God! This is just-- AWFUL!"

She produced a four-shot, .50 caliber revolver from underneath the bar and pointed it between his eyes. The laser-sight twinkled from one eye to the other. "I don't take criticism well." She smirked.

Jerry swallowed and said conversationally, "You know? You need a little work on your attitude!" He kept his hands away from his sides and kept very still.

She smirked more and cocked the hammer and asked innocently, "Really?" She batted her eyelashes at him. He felt very queasy.

He was estimating that a city bus could drive though the opening at the end of the barrel, when two other barrels poked him in the back. Milo Finch's voice came from the left side, saying, "Hiya, Jerry! We're going to work on YOUR Attitude!"

Neko-Ney came in from outside and pronounced after she closed and locked the door, "He came alone. Figures! He couldn't get a date, unless he bought her, or rented! The white-noise filter is on and noone outside this room can hear us. In case he screams or we shoot him and stuff." She sounded very cheerful at the tail of that.

Jerry, with a stream of cold sweat running down his face, said, "Oh shit! Look...I know how it looks—but you gotta believe me...any of you would'a done the same! It's that idiot, Max Matamoros' fault! He screwed up –royally! I'm helping save the world. Chase and Fidget threw in when we were able to tell them what the hell is actually going on. You gotta believe me! I can't prove it! But-- it is the truth, I swear it!" He was weeping and tears were running down his cheeks as he begged for his life.

Milo, disgusted, pushed him pushed him back until Jerry fell into the recliner. Milo shouted at Jerry, "Cut the bullshit! We don't believe any of your bullshit anymore! GOD! You already screwed us all over! Don't play the 'wounded innocent' card on us! We'll choke on it!"

Gadget looked at him. She wore the cobalt blue LadyMouse armor and strode up to him. She snarled at him, "Look here, Jerry! You are slime! ONE thing might save your skinny backside! The Anti-Doorways- OS virus you got from Ruby Laser!"

He rolled his eyes and sighed, "I guess it's the only way. Why do'ya think I do business with her and her radicals? Matamoros is fucking crazy! That egotistical madman is going to kill us all! That's why! Be careful with that damned thing. It's a monster when released. It is a net weapon of vast destructive power. You could cripple the World Web with it."

Gadget looked astonished and raised an eyebrow at him. She leaned in close to him and asked, "How did YOU end up with such a powerful weapon, Jerry? What did YOU have to do to get it.?"

Milo frowned. He nodded and snarled at Jerry, "You slime! How many other people did you have to betray to get this?"

Jerry held up his hands and spoke softly, "Whoa, Whoa! Just one. Maximilian Matamoros. He put a voice governance chip in my head. Ruby Laser hates his guts, so I figured she might take it out. Turned out....that...the technology...it....DAMMIT! She couldn't take it out. But there are windows around it that open and close in cycles. So to speak. She figured out the cycles. She's one smart cookie. She used the virus to paralyze the chip for a cycle and I spilled to her. The 'Mosquitos' Virus is my payment."

Milo put a gun to Jerry's head and shouted at him, "Did you get your thirty pieces of silver for handing over Chase? You dirt-bag!"

"Hold it! HOLDIT! She's still alive! They needed Chase and Fidget alive because they had bonded together. That is rare and important! They will help save the world. I hope. I can't tell you! The VGC controls my mouth and language about this subject!" Jerry gulped air like a drowning man and he glowered around at Milo and the three 'replicant' girls. He said in a calmer voice, "Look ,Milo–I am not the enemy. Hell...most of the folks at UTX are okay, too. I'll tell you the straight dope. Max Matamoros and his cronies are crooked as they come. I just can't tell you what is going on."

Jerry looked directly at Gadget and said pleadingly, "Look. You gotta go to Belize! I CAN'T tell you other than....millions are counting on you! Every time, when push came to shove– YOU volunteered to help Max! YOU did! You're still alive! Oh my god! You gotta go! Please!"

Of all the scenarios they practiced in the safe-house, this was not covered. Gadget took a step backwards bringing her hands to clasp her hands under her chin. Gadget looked around in confusion.

Neko-Ney rushed up and raised a hand at Jerry and shouted, "Hey! Shut your face, ya mook!"

Jerry glared at her and said in a low voice, "Look here, miss kitty-cat. You aren't important. Milo Finch ain't important! None of the units other than number Four are important. Gadget unit Four is crucial! Crucial! I can't explain–but she has to go to Belize!"

Milo thought frantically about what he was missing. He thought about playing a dangerous card, but felt out of options. Ramon and Anthony were upstairs with Anvil Clay. Milo didn't want to tip Jerry off that two allies were waiting upstairs and had heavy weapons if things went really badly.

Milo said, "Ah cut the crap, Jerry! We know all about the aliens, the pit, the test, the zones, the rest of it. Why do they need Gadget? What part does she play?"

Jerry laid back and barked out a short laugh. He waved a hand and said, "Aliens? Ha! Wish it WERE that simple! It's wifi web keyed. Once in the Belize Replication Facility's wifi web–blammo, the VGC goes off-line. Has to do with a radio key. If it ain't clickin' the tumblers...your tongue is tied behind your back! Any wonder I hate the guy? Biggest thing in human history and can't even talk about it. Passwords don't cut it."

Widget said angrily, "Dr Lassiter is dead. Ricky is dead. Becky is dead. TWO is dead! It is HIS fault! Why don't I blow the VGC out and bash it with a bat? That would break it? Right? I vote we shoot this monster!"

Jerry stared in surprise at this vitriolic outburst from Widget and looked at Milo, and asked him, "What did you do to these girls? This one, sure as hell, don't sound like Gadget from the New Rescue Rangers!" Neko-Ney just stood by the door and lashed her tail back and forth, while flexing her claws.

Milo said, "You don't have the right to ask questions here, Jerry. Fork over the virus, and the activation code!"

Jerry held up his hands and said, "Okay, okay! Here. Normal anti-virals can't stop the thing. It can't recognize it. Ruby has the counter-viral program. She wrote it to specifically counter the 'Mosquitos'. She called it 'Flyswatter'. She didn't give the counter-virus. Cute, hunh?" Jerry activated his wrist-top and let it communicate to Milo's palm-top and downloaded the virus.

Jerry looked at Milo and asked him, "What now? Are you gonna shoot me? Let me go?"

Milo asked Jerry, "Where is Chase? What are they going to do with her?"

"I thought you said you knew all about everything!" Jerry seemed surprised for a moment.

Widget said, "I can beat it out of him." She and Neko-Ney looked ready, willing and able to smack the crap out of him. Jerry cleared his throat and shifted around uncomfortably.

'"Okay! Alright! They moved Chase and Fidget from the Executive Suites, to the Security Core, where they'll prepare Fidget for....her....swim in the River of Time, tomorrow." Jerry struggled with the last part and finished gasping and wincing.

Milo looked significantly around at the others.

Gadget stepped forward and asked, "What is the 'River of Time'?"

He flinched and winced more. Jerry Gasped out, "It's a term. I can't tell you what it really is. It's a synonym for something else. If Fidget survives, she'll..."

Gadget grabbed Jerry up by the collar and glared at him nose to nose and snarled, "...IF she survives? What do you mean?"

He flinched and moaned, "I said 'If she survives'...she'll move deeper into the complex. Few of her kind survive the River of Time, to move on to the other parts. It's about even money–whether she makes it or not. Is she doesn't make it—well...Max doesn't like loose ends, and won't have an use for Chase Victor any more."

Gadget pushed him back into the recliner. Milo asked Jerry, "How much time do we have before Fidget takes her 'swim'?"

Widget asked, "What do you mean, 'Few of her kind survive the 'River of Time'?"

Jerry winced and groaned out, "A ...uh...feeling soul ...is needed to navigate the River of Time. Replicants don't have real feelings most of the time."

Neko-Ney smacked Jerry in the head and hissed like a pair of air-brakes on a truck. Her claws left bloody tracks across his face as his head rocked back. He screamed, "OWWAhh, Jesus! I said 'MOST'! Jesus! You clawed me up, dammit!"

Milo shouted at Neko-Ney, "Calm down! Shit! Go on, Jerry."

Jerry shook as blood and sweat ran down his bruised face, He drew a shuddering breath and said quietly, "Without an...uh...anchor on THIS side, the soul of the traveler...uh...is lost in the underworld, forever and their body is destroyed. People unwilling to...uh...you know... sacrifice, are destroyed by the Well of Knowledge and never reach the River of Time."

Widget asked, looking at Gadget and remembering what she said about her dreams, "Is the mirror with the wispy smoke, the Well of Knowledge?"

Gadget answered. "No. That is the Tezcatlipoca. The 'Smoking Mirror', also called the test at the top of the Pit of the Underworld."

Milo looked at Gadget and asked in wonder, "Hey, Gadj...you have a memory break-through?"

She shook her head and answered slowly, "No. Just connecting the dots, I guess. I have a library of knowledge in my head. That includes a long list of terms and locations. When the location is one I know, I can answer."

Ramon interrupted on the ear-bead communicators. "I'm still monitoring his voice -stress analysis. He believes what he says. If he lies–I'll tell you."

Gadget tapped on the pick-up microphone twice to signal she heard him.

Jerry nodded and looked at Gadget. "Yeah, that's why Max wants her back. She's the most successful penetrator he ever found! My god! She's the one who found the River of Time. She made the journey to the underworld fifteen times!"

Milo frowned and pointed his Makarov 4.65mm rifle at Jerry's mid-section and said, "You're talking a lot, but not answering the question. When does Fidget take this test? How long does Chase have?"

Jerry shrugged. "Tomorrow evening at twilight. Damned VGC, I can only dance around the edge, on this, and give you all an allegory...or metaphor or whatever the hell it is, so be patient! This is REALLY important! Don't blow this off, okay?"

Jerry paused, clenching his hands together and collected his thoughts, threading them through the Vocal Governance chip, and said,"The Smoking Mirror can only be faced at dawn and twilight. That is when the doorway to the Underworld lays open. There are devils in that Underworld. They were woke up by Max, the dumb-ass! He hopes that someone like Fidget, an innocent, can calm them down before they wage war on heaven again."

In the upstairs bedroom of Anvil Clay, listening on ear-beads, Anthony, holding a tri-barreled 4.65 mini-gun, looked at Ramon in shock.

Anvil put a hand to his forehead and pronounced aloud, " 'Wage war on Heaven AGAIN!' Uhm...It sounds like you boys might need a little, teensy bit of back-up."

Ramon looked grim as he cradled his RPG-27 and nodded. He looked at it and said, "We need bigger guns."

–To Be Continued –


End file.
